Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by Montague Rhodes James

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M. R. JAMES

GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY

* * * * *

_These stories are dedicated to all those who at various times have

listened to them._

* * * * *

CONTENTS

PART 1: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY

Canon Alberic's Scrap-book

Lost Hearts

The Mezzotint

The Ash-tree

Number 13

Count Magnus

'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas

PART 2: MORE GHOST STORIES

A School StoryThe Rose Garden

The Tractate Middoth

Casting the Runes

The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral

Martin's Close

Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance

* * * * *

PART 1: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY

* * * * *

If anyone is curious about my local settings, let it be recorded that St

Bertrand de Comminges and Viborg are real places: that in 'Oh, Whistle,

and I'll Come to You' I had Felixstowe in mind. As for the fragments of

ostensible erudition which are scattered about my pages, hardly anything

in them is not pure invention; there never was, naturally, any such book

as that which I quote in 'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas'. 'Canon Alberic's

Scrap-book' was written in 1894 and printed soon after in the _National

Review_, 'Lost Hearts' appeared in the _Pall Mall Magazine_; of the nextfive stories, most of which were read to friends at Christmas-time at

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King's College, Cambridge, I only recollect that I wrote 'Number 13' in

1899, while 'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas' was composed in the summer of

1904.

M. R. JAMES

* * * * *

CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK

St Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees,

not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Bagneres-de-Luchon. It

was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral

which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of 1883

an Englishman arrived at this old-world place--I can hardly dignify it

with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a

Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St Bertrand's

Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than

himself, in their hotel at Toulouse, under promise to join him on the

following morning. Half an hour at the church would satisfy _them_, and

all three could then pursue their journey in the direction of Auch. But

our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to

himself to fill a note-book and to use several dozens of plates in the

process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful

church that dominates the little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out

this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of

the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the

somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he

came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of

study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened

old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other

church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive or rather hunted and

oppressed air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him;

the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual

nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself

in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him

down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a

guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The

probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but,

still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor

even than a termagant wife.

However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep in

his note-book and too busy with his camera to give more than an

occasional glance to the sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he found

him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the wall

or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. Dennistoun became rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old man

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from his _dejeuner_, that he was regarded as likely to make away with St

Bertrand's ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs

over the font, began to torment him.

'Won't you go home?' he said at last; 'I'm quite well able to finish my

notes alone; you can lock me in if you like. I shall want at least twohours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn't it?'

'Good heavens!' said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw

into a state of unaccountable terror, 'such a thing cannot be thought of

for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no; two hours,

three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at

all cold, with many thanks to monsieur.'

'Very well, my little man,' quoth Dennistoun to himself: 'you have been

warned, and you must take the consequences.'

Before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous

dilapidated organ, the choir-screen of Bishop John de Mauleon, the

remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber

had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at

Dennistoun's heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had

been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a large

empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they were, sometimes.

'Once,' Dennistoun said to me, 'I could have sworn I heard a thin

metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiringglance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. "It is he--that is--it

is no one; the door is locked," was all he said, and we looked at each

other for a full minute.'

Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was examining

a large dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series

illustrating the miracles of St Bertrand. The composition of the picture

is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below, which

runs thus:

_Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem diabolus diu volebat

strangulare_. (How St Bertrand delivered a man whom the Devil long

sought to strangle.)

Dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular remark

of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old man on his

knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in agony, his

hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks. Dennistoun

naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the question would not

go away from him,'Why should a daub of this kind affect anyone so

strongly?' He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to thereason of the strange look that had been puzzling him all the day: the

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man must be a monomaniac; but what was his monomania?

It was nearly five o'clock; the short day was drawing in, and the church

began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises--the muffled

footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all

day--seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequentlyquickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent.

The sacristan began for the first time to show signs of hurry and

impatience. He heaved a sigh of relief when camera and note-book were

finally packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned Dennistoun to

the western door of the church, under the tower. It was time to ring the

Angelus. A few pulls at the reluctant rope, and the great bell Bertrande,

high in the tower, began to speak, and swung her voice up among the pines

and down to the valleys, loud with mountain-streams, calling the dwellers

on those lonely hills to remember and repeat the salutation of the angel

to her whom he called Blessed among women. With that a profound quiet

seemed to fall for the first time that day upon the little town, and

Dennistoun and the sacristan went out of the church.

On the doorstep they fell into conversation.

'Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir-books in the

sacristy.'

'Undoubtedly. I was going to ask you if there were a library in the

town.'

'No, monsieur; perhaps there used to be one belonging to the Chapter, but

it is now such a small place--' Here came a strange pause of

irresolution, as it seemed; then, with a sort of plunge, he went on: 'But

if monsieur is _amateur des vieux livres_, I have at home something that

might interest him. It is not a hundred yards.'

At once all Dennistoun's cherished dreams of finding priceless

manuscripts in untrodden corners of France flashed up, to die down again

the next moment. It was probably a stupid missal of Plantin's printing,

about 1580. Where was the likelihood that a place so near Toulouse would

not have been ransacked long ago by collectors? However, it would be

foolish not to go; he would reproach himself for ever after if he

refused. So they set off. On the way the curious irresolution and sudden

determination of the sacristan recurred to Dennistoun, and he wondered in

a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to be

made away with as a supposed rich Englishman. He contrived, therefore, to

begin talking with his guide, and to drag in, in a rather clumsy fashion,

the fact that he expected two friends to join him early the next morning.

To his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the sacristan at once

of some of the anxiety that oppressed him.

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'That is well,' he said quite brightly--'that is very well. Monsieur will

travel in company with his friends: they will be always near him. It is a

good thing to travel thus in company--sometimes.'

The last word appeared to be added as an afterthought and to bring with

it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man.

They were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its

neighbours, stone-built, with a shield carved over the door, the shield

of Alberic de Mauleon, a collateral descendant, Dennistoun tells me, of

Bishop John de Mauleon. This Alberic was a Canon of Comminges from 1680

to 1701. The upper windows of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole

place bore, as does the rest of Comminges, the aspect of decaying age.

Arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment.

'Perhaps,' he said, 'perhaps, after all, monsieur has not the time?'

'Not at all--lots of time--nothing to do till tomorrow. Let us see what

it is you have got.'

The door was opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far

younger than the sacristan's, but bearing something of the same

distressing look: only here it seemed to be the mark, not so much of fear

for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another. Plainly the

owner of the face was the sacristan's daughter; and, but for the

expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough. Shebrightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an

able-bodied stranger. A few remarks passed between father and daughter of

which Dennistoun only caught these words, said by the sacristan: 'He was

laughing in the church,' words which were answered only by a look of

terror from the girl.

But in another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a

small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by a

wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth. Something of the character of

an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to

the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural colours,

the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and solidity,

and when a lamp had been brought, and chairs set, the sacristan went to

this chest, and produced therefrom, with growing excitement and

nervousness, as Dennistoun thought, a large book, wrapped in a white

cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red thread. Even

before the wrapping had been removed, Dennistoun began to be interested

by the size and shape of the volume. 'Too large for a missal,' he

thought, 'and not the shape of an antiphoner; perhaps it may be something

good, after all.' The next moment the book was open, and Dennistoun felt

that he had at last lit upon something better than good. Before him lay alarge folio, bound, perhaps, late in the seventeenth century, with the

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arms of Canon Alberic de Mauleon stamped in gold on the sides. There may

have been a hundred and fifty leaves of paper in the book, and on almost

every one of them was fastened a leaf from an illuminated manuscript.

Such a collection Dennistoun had hardly dreamed of in his wildest

moments. Here were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis, illustrated with

pictures, which could not be later than A.D. 700. Further on was acomplete set of pictures from a Psalter, of English execution, of the

very finest kind that the thirteenth century could produce; and, perhaps

best of all, there were twenty leaves of uncial writing in Latin, which,

as a few words seen here and there told him at once, must belong to some

very early unknown patristic treatise. Could it possibly be a fragment of

the copy of Papias 'On the Words of Our Lord', which was known to have

existed as late as the twelfth century at Nimes?[1] In any case, his mind

was made up; that book must return to Cambridge with him, even if he had

to draw the whole of his balance from the bank and stay at St. Bertrand

till the money came. He glanced up at the sacristan to see if his face

yielded any hint that the book was for sale. The sacristan was pale, and

his lips were working.

[1] We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment

of that work, if not of that actual copy of it.

'If monsieur will turn on to the end,' he said.

So monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf; and

at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper, of much more

recent date than anything he had seen yet, which puzzled himconsiderably. They must be contemporary, he decided, with the

unprincipled Canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the Chapter

library of St Bertrand to form this priceless scrap-book. On the first of

the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly recognizable

by a person who knew the ground, of the south aisle and cloisters of St

Bertrand's. There were curious signs looking like planetary symbols, and

a few Hebrew words in the corners; and in the north-west angle of the

cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below the plan were some lines

of writing in Latin, which ran thus:

_Responsa 12(mi) Dec. 1694. Interrogatum est: Inveniamne? Responsum

est: Invenies. Fiamne dives? Fies. Vivamne invidendus? Vives.

Moriarne in lecto meo? Ita._ (Answers of the 12th of December, 1694.

It was asked: Shall I find it? Answer: Thou shalt. Shall I become

rich? Thou wilt. Shall I live an object of envy? Thou wilt. Shall I

die in my bed? Thou wilt.)

'A good specimen of the treasure-hunter's record--quite reminds one of Mr

Minor-Canon Quatremain in _Old St Paul's_,' was Dennistoun's comment, and

he turned the leaf.

What he then saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more than he

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could have conceived any drawing or picture capable of impressing him.

And, though the drawing he saw is no longer in existence, there is a

photograph of it (which I possess) which fully bears out that statement.

The picture in question was a sepia drawing at the end of the seventeenth

century, representing, one would say at first sight, a Biblical scene;

for the architecture (the picture represented an interior) and thefigures had that semi-classical flavour about them which the artists of

two hundred years ago thought appropriate to illustrations of the Bible.

On the right was a king on his throne, the throne elevated on twelve

steps, a canopy overhead, soldiers on either side--evidently King

Solomon. He was bending forward with outstretched sceptre, in attitude of

command; his face expressed horror and disgust, yet there was in it also

the mark of imperious command and confident power. The left half of the

picture was the strangest, however. The interest plainly centred there.

On the pavement before the throne were grouped four soldiers, surrounding

a crouching figure which must be described in a moment. A fifth soldier

lay dead on the pavement, his neck distorted, and his eye-balls starting

from his head. The four surrounding guards were looking at the King. In

their faces, the sentiment of horror was intensified; they seemed, in

fact, only restrained from flight by their implicit trust in their

master. All this terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in

their midst.

I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression which this

figure makes upon anyone who looks at it. I recollect once showing the

photograph of the drawing to a lecturer on morphology--a person of, I wasgoing to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of mind. He

absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening, and he told

me afterwards that for many nights he had not dared to put out his light

before going to sleep. However, the main traits of the figure I can at

least indicate.

At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black hair; presently it

was seen that this covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton,

but with the muscles standing out like wires. The hands were of a dusky

pallor, covered, like the body, with long, coarse hairs, and hideously

taloned. The eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black

pupils, and were fixed upon the throned King with a look of beast-like

hate. Imagine one of the awful bird-catching spiders of South America

translated into human form, and endowed with intelligence just less than

human, and you will have some faint conception of the terror inspired by

the appalling effigy. One remark is universally made by those to whom I

have shown the picture: 'It was drawn from the life.'

As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided,

Dennistoun stole a look at his hosts. The sacristan's hands were pressed

upon his eyes; his daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, wastelling her beads feverishly.

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At last the question was asked: 'Is this book for sale?'

There was the same hesitation, the same plunge of determination that he

had noticed before, and then came the welcome answer: 'If monsieur

pleases.'

'How much do you ask for it?'

'I will take two hundred and fifty francs.'

This was confounding. Even a collector's conscience is sometimes stirred,

and Dennistoun's conscience was tenderer than a collector's.

'My good man!' he said again and again, 'your book is worth far more than

two hundred and fifty francs. I assure you--far more.'

But the answer did not vary: 'I will take two hundred and fifty

francs--not more.'

There was really no possibility of refusing such a chance. The money was

paid, the receipt signed, a glass of wine drunk over the transaction, and

then the sacristan seemed to become a new man. He stood upright, he

ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him, he actually laughed

or tried to laugh. Dennistoun rose to go.

'I shall have the honour of accompanying monsieur to his hotel?' said thesacristan.

'Oh, no, thanks! it isn't a hundred yards. I know the way perfectly, and

there is a moon.'

The offer was pressed three or four times and refused as often.

'Then, monsieur will summon me if--if he finds occasion; he will keep the

middle of the road, the sides are so rough.'

'Certainly, certainly,' said Dennistoun, who was impatient to examine his

prize by himself; and he stepped out into the passage with his book under

his arm.

Here he was met by the daughter; she, it appeared, was anxious to do a

little business on her own account; perhaps, like Gehazi, to 'take

somewhat' from the foreigner whom her father had spared.

'A silver crucifix and chain for the neck; monsieur would perhaps be good

enough to accept it?'

Well, really, Dennistoun hadn't much use for these things. What did

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mademoiselle want for it?

'Nothing--nothing in the world. Monsieur is more than welcome to it.'

The tone in which this and much more was said was unmistakably genuine,

so that Dennistoun was reduced to profuse thanks, and submitted to havethe chain put round his neck. It really seemed as if he had rendered the

father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to repay. As

he set off with his book they stood at the door looking after him, and

they were still looking when he waved them a last good night from the

steps of the Chapeau Rouge.

Dinner was over, and Dennistoun was in his bedroom, shut up alone with

his acquisition. The landlady had manifested a particular interest in him

since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and

bought an old book from him. He thought, too, that he had heard a hurried

dialogue between her and the said sacristan in the passage outside the

_salle a manger_; some words to the effect that 'Pierre and Bertrand

would be sleeping in the house' had closed the conversation.

All this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over

him--nervous reaction, perhaps, after the delight of his discovery.

Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was someone

behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the

wall. All this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the

obvious value of the collection he had acquired. And now, as I said, he

was alone in his bedroom, taking stock of Canon Alberic's treasures, inwhich every moment revealed something more charming.

'Bless Canon Alberic!' said Dennistoun, who had an inveterate habit of

talking to himself. 'I wonder where he is now? Dear me! I wish that

landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner; it makes one

feel as if there was someone dead in the house. Half a pipe more, did you

say? I think perhaps you are right. I wonder what that crucifix is that

the young woman insisted on giving me? Last century, I suppose. Yes,

probably. It is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one's

neck--just too heavy. Most likely her father has been wearing it for

years. I think I might give it a clean up before I put it away.'

He had taken the crucifix off, and laid it on the table, when his

attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his left

elbow. Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his brain

with their own incalculable quickness.

A penwiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black. A large

spider? I trust to goodness not--no. Good God! a hand like the hand in

that picture!

In another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin,

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covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse

black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from the

ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, grey, horny,

and wrinkled.

He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching athis heart. The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to

a standing posture behind his seat, its right hand crooked above his

scalp. There was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair

covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin--what can I call

it?--shallow, like a beast's; teeth showed behind the black lips; there

was no nose; the eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils showed

black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy life which

shone there, were the most horrifying features in the whole vision. There

was intelligence of a kind in them--intelligence beyond that of a beast,

below that of a man.

The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennistoun were the intensest

physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. What did he do? What

could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said, but he

knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver crucifix, that

he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part of the demon, and

that he screamed with the voice of an animal in hideous pain.

Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men, who rushed in,

saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed

out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with himthat night, and his two friends were at St Bertrand by nine o'clock next

morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost himself

by that time, and his story found credence with them, though not until

they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan.

Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretence, and

had listened with the deepest interest to the story retailed by the

landlady. He showed no surprise.

'It is he--it is he! I have seen him myself,' was his only comment; and

to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed: 'Deux fois je l'ai vu:

mille fois je l'ai senti.' He would tell them nothing of the provenance

of the book, nor any details of his experiences. 'I shall soon sleep, and

my rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me?' he said.[2]

[2] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St

Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father's

'obsession'.

We shall never know what he or Canon Alberic de Mauleon suffered. At the

back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may besupposed to throw light on the situation:

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_Contradictio Salomonis cum demonio nocturno.

Albericus de Mauleone delineavit.

V. Deus in adiutorium. Ps. Qui habitat.

Sancte Bertrande, demoniorum effugator, intercede pro me miserrimo.

Primum uidi nocte 12(mi) Dec. 1694:uidebo mox ultimum. Peccaui et passus

sum, plura adhuc passurus.

Dec. 29, 1701_.[3]

[3] _i.e._, The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by

Alberic de Mauleon. _Versicle_. O Lord, make haste to help me. _Psalm_.

Whoso dwelleth xci.

Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy.

I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall see it for

the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet.

Dec. 29, 1701.

The 'Gallia Christiana' gives the date of the Canon's death as December

31, 1701, 'in bed, of a sudden seizure'. Details of this kind are not

common in the great work of the Sammarthani.

I have never quite understood what was Dennistoun's view of the events I

have narrated. He quoted to me once a text from Ecclesiasticus: 'Some

spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay on

sore strokes.' On another occasion he said: 'Isaiah was a very sensibleman; doesn't he say something about night monsters living in the ruins of

Babylon? These things are rather beyond us at present.'

Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with it.

We had been, last year, to Comminges, to see Canon Alberic's tomb. It is

a great marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large wig and

soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw Dennistoun

talking for some time with the Vicar of St Bertrand's, and as we drove

away he said to me: 'I hope it isn't wrong: you know I am a

Presbyterian--but I--I believe there will be "saying of Mass and singing

of dirges" for Alberic de Mauleon's rest.' Then he added, with a touch of

the Northern British in his tone, 'I had no notion they came so dear.'

* * * * *

The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge. The drawing was

photographed and then burnt by Dennistoun on the day when he left

Comminges on the occasion of his first visit.

12



LOST HEARTS

It was, as far as I can ascertain, in September of the year 1811 that a

post-chaise drew up before the door of Aswarby Hall, in the heart of

Lincolnshire. The little boy who was the only passenger in the chaise,

and who jumped out as soon as it had stopped, looked about him with thekeenest curiosity during the short interval that elapsed between the

ringing of the bell and the opening of the hall door. He saw a tall,

square, red-brick house, built in the reign of Anne; a stone-pillared

porch had been added in the purer classical style of 1790; the windows of

the house were many, tall and narrow, with small panes and thick white

woodwork. A pediment, pierced with a round window, crowned the front.

There were wings to right and left, connected by curious glazed

galleries, supported by colonnades, with the central block. These wings

plainly contained the stables and offices of the house. Each was

surmounted by an ornamental cupola with a gilded vane.

An evening light shone on the building, making the window-panes glow like

so many fires. Away from the Hall in front stretched a flat park studded

with oaks and fringed with firs, which stood out against the sky. The

clock in the church-tower, buried in trees on the edge of the park, only

its golden weather-cock catching the light, was striking six, and the

sound came gently beating down the wind. It was altogether a pleasant

impression, though tinged with the sort of melancholy appropriate to an

evening in early autumn, that was conveyed to the mind of the boy who was

standing in the porch waiting for the door to open to him.

The post-chaise had brought him from Warwickshire, where, some six months

before, he had been left an orphan. Now, owing to the generous offer of

his elderly cousin, Mr Abney, he had come to live at Aswarby. The offer

was unexpected, because all who knew anything of Mr Abney looked upon him

as a somewhat austere recluse, into whose steady-going household the

advent of a small boy would import a new and, it seemed, incongruous

element. The truth is that very little was known of Mr Abney's pursuits

or temper. The Professor of Greek at Cambridge had been heard to say that

no one knew more of the religious beliefs of the later pagans than did

the owner of Aswarby. Certainly his library contained all the then

available books bearing on the Mysteries, the Orphic poems, the worship

of Mithras, and the Neo-Platonists. In the marble-paved hall stood a fine

group of Mithras slaying a bull, which had been imported from the Levant

at great expense by the owner. He had contributed a description of it to

the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and he had written a remarkable series of

articles in the _Critical Museum_ on the superstitions of the Romans of

the Lower Empire. He was looked upon, in fine, as a man wrapped up in his

books, and it was a matter of great surprise among his neighbours that he

should ever have heard of his orphan cousin, Stephen Elliott, much more

that he should have volunteered to make him an inmate of Aswarby Hall.

Whatever may have been expected by his neighbours, it is certain that Mr

13



Abney--the tall, the thin, the austere--seemed inclined to give his young

cousin a kindly reception. The moment the front-door was opened he darted

out of his study, rubbing his hands with delight.

'How are you, my boy?--how are you? How old are you?' said he--'that is,

you are not too much tired, I hope, by your journey to eat your supper?'

'No, thank you, sir,' said Master Elliott; 'I am pretty well.'

'That's a good lad,' said Mr Abney. 'And how old are you, my boy?'

It seemed a little odd that he should have asked the question twice in

the first two minutes of their acquaintance.

'I'm twelve years old next birthday, sir,' said Stephen.

'And when is your birthday, my dear boy? Eleventh of September, eh?

That's well--that's very well. Nearly a year hence, isn't it? I like--ha,

ha!--I like to get these things down in my book. Sure it's twelve?

Certain?'

'Yes, quite sure, sir.'

'Well, well! Take him to Mrs Bunch's room, Parkes, and let him have his

tea--supper--whatever it is.'

'Yes, sir,' answered the staid Mr Parkes; and conducted Stephen to thelower regions.

Mrs Bunch was the most comfortable and human person whom Stephen had as

yet met at Aswarby. She made him completely at home; they were great

friends in a quarter of an hour: and great friends they remained. Mrs

Bunch had been born in the neighbourhood some fifty-five years before the

date of Stephen's arrival, and her residence at the Hall was of twenty

years' standing. Consequently, if anyone knew the ins and outs of the

house and the district, Mrs Bunch knew them; and she was by no means

disinclined to communicate her information.

Certainly there were plenty of things about the Hall and the Hall gardens

which Stephen, who was of an adventurous and inquiring turn, was anxious

to have explained to him. 'Who built the temple at the end of the laurel

walk? Who was the old man whose picture hung on the staircase, sitting at

a table, with a skull under his hand?' These and many similar points were

cleared up by the resources of Mrs Bunch's powerful intellect. There were

others, however, of which the explanations furnished were less

satisfactory.

One November evening Stephen was sitting by the fire in the housekeeper'sroom reflecting on his surroundings.

14



'Is Mr Abney a good man, and will he go to heaven?' he suddenly asked,

with the peculiar confidence which children possess in the ability of

their elders to settle these questions, the decision of which is believed

to be reserved for other tribunals.

'Good?--bless the child!' said Mrs Bunch. 'Master's as kind a soul as

ever I see! Didn't I never tell you of the little boy as he took in out

of the street, as you may say, this seven years back? and the little

girl, two years after I first come here?'

'No. Do tell me all about them, Mrs Bunch--now, this minute!'

'Well,' said Mrs Bunch, 'the little girl I don't seem to recollect so

much about. I know master brought her back with him from his walk one

day, and give orders to Mrs Ellis, as was housekeeper then, as she should

be took every care with. And the pore child hadn't no one belonging to

her--she telled me so her own self--and here she lived with us a matter

of three weeks it might be; and then, whether she were somethink of a

gipsy in her blood or what not, but one morning she out of her bed afore

any of us had opened a eye, and neither track nor yet trace of her have I

set eyes on since. Master was wonderful put about, and had all the ponds

dragged; but it's my belief she was had away by them gipsies, for there

was singing round the house for as much as an hour the night she went,

and Parkes, he declare as he heard them a-calling in the woods all that

afternoon. Dear, dear! a hodd child she was, so silent in her ways and

all, but I was wonderful taken up with her, so domesticated shewas--surprising.'

'And what about the little boy?' said Stephen.

'Ah, that pore boy!' sighed Mrs Bunch. 'He were a foreigner--Jevanny he

called hisself--and he come a-tweaking his 'urdy-gurdy round and about

the drive one winter day, and master 'ad him in that minute, and ast all

about where he came from, and how old he was, and how he made his way,

and where was his relatives, and all as kind as heart could wish. But it

went the same way with him. They're a hunruly lot, them foreign nations,

I do suppose, and he was off one fine morning just the same as the girl.

Why he went and what he done was our question for as much as a year

after; for he never took his 'urdy-gurdy, and there it lays on the

shelf.'

The remainder of the evening was spent by Stephen in miscellaneous

cross-examination of Mrs Bunch and in efforts to extract a tune from the

hurdy-gurdy.

That night he had a curious dream. At the end of the passage at the top

of the house, in which his bedroom was situated, there was an old disusedbathroom. It was kept locked, but the upper half of the door was glazed,

15



and, since the muslin curtains which used to hang there had long been

gone, you could look in and see the lead-lined bath affixed to the wall

on the right hand, with its head towards the window.

On the night of which I am speaking, Stephen Elliott found himself, as he

thought, looking through the glazed door. The moon was shining throughthe window, and he was gazing at a figure which lay in the bath.

His description of what he saw reminds me of what I once beheld myself in

the famous vaults of St Michan's Church in Dublin, which possesses the

horrid property of preserving corpses from decay for centuries. A figure

inexpressibly thin and pathetic, of a dusty leaden colour, enveloped in a

shroud-like garment, the thin lips crooked into a faint and dreadful

smile, the hands pressed tightly over the region of the heart.

As he looked upon it, a distant, almost inaudible moan seemed to issue

from its lips, and the arms began to stir. The terror of the sight forced

Stephen backwards and he awoke to the fact that he was indeed standing on

the cold boarded floor of the passage in the full light of the moon. With

a courage which I do not think can be common among boys of his age, he

went to the door of the bathroom to ascertain if the figure of his dreams

were really there. It was not, and he went back to bed.

Mrs Bunch was much impressed next morning by his story, and went so far

as to replace the muslin curtain over the glazed door of the bathroom. Mr

Abney, moreover, to whom he confided his experiences at breakfast, was

greatly interested and made notes of the matter in what he called 'hisbook'.

The spring equinox was approaching, as Mr Abney frequently reminded his

cousin, adding that this had been always considered by the ancients to be

a critical time for the young: that Stephen would do well to take care of

himself, and to shut his bedroom window at night; and that Censorinus had

some valuable remarks on the subject. Two incidents that occurred about

this time made an impression upon Stephen's mind.

The first was after an unusually uneasy and oppressed night that he had

passed--though he could not recall any particular dream that he had had.

The following evening Mrs Bunch was occupying herself in mending his

nightgown.

'Gracious me, Master Stephen!' she broke forth rather irritably, 'how do

you manage to tear your nightdress all to flinders this way? Look here,

sir, what trouble you do give to poor servants that have to darn and mend

after you!'

There was indeed a most destructive and apparently wanton series of slitsor scorings in the garment, which would undoubtedly require a skilful

16



needle to make good. They were confined to the left side of the chest--

long, parallel slits about six inches in length, some of them not quite

piercing the texture of the linen. Stephen could only express his entire

ignorance of their origin: he was sure they were not there the night

before.

'But,' he said, 'Mrs Bunch, they are just the same as the scratches on

the outside of my bedroom door: and I'm sure I never had anything to do

with making _them_.'

Mrs Bunch gazed at him open-mouthed, then snatched up a candle, departed

hastily from the room, and was heard making her way upstairs. In a few

minutes she came down.

'Well,' she said, 'Master Stephen, it's a funny thing to me how them

marks and scratches can 'a' come there--too high up for any cat or dog to

'ave made 'em, much less a rat: for all the world like a Chinaman's

finger-nails, as my uncle in the tea-trade used to tell us of when we was

girls together. I wouldn't say nothing to master, not if I was you,

Master Stephen, my dear; and just turn the key of the door when you go to

your bed.'

'I always do, Mrs Bunch, as soon as I've said my prayers.'

'Ah, that's a good child: always say your prayers, and then no one can't

hurt you.'

Herewith Mrs Bunch addressed herself to mending the injured nightgown,

with intervals of meditation, until bed-time. This was on a Friday night

in March, 1812.

On the following evening the usual duet of Stephen and Mrs Bunch was

augmented by the sudden arrival of Mr Parkes, the butler, who as a rule

kept himself rather _to_ himself in his own pantry. He did not see that

Stephen was there: he was, moreover, flustered and less slow of speech

than was his wont.

'Master may get up his own wine, if he likes, of an evening,' was his

first remark. 'Either I do it in the daytime or not at all, Mrs Bunch. I

don't know what it may be: very like it's the rats, or the wind got into

the cellars; but I'm not so young as I was, and I can't go through with

it as I have done.'

'Well, Mr Parkes, you know it is a surprising place for the rats, is the

Hall.'

'I'm not denying that, Mrs Bunch; and, to be sure, many a time I've heard

the tale from the men in the shipyards about the rat that could speak. Inever laid no confidence in that before; but tonight, if I'd demeaned

17



myself to lay my ear to the door of the further bin, I could pretty much

have heard what they was saying.'

'Oh, there, Mr Parkes, I've no patience with your fancies! Rats talking

in the wine-cellar indeed!'

'Well, Mrs Bunch, I've no wish to argue with you: all I say is, if you

choose to go to the far bin, and lay your ear to the door, you may prove

my words this minute.'

'What nonsense you do talk, Mr Parkes--not fit for children to listen to!

Why, you'll be frightening Master Stephen there out of his wits.'

'What! Master Stephen?' said Parkes, awaking to the consciousness of the

boy's presence. 'Master Stephen knows well enough when I'm a-playing a

joke with you, Mrs Bunch.'

In fact, Master Stephen knew much too well to suppose that Mr Parkes had

in the first instance intended a joke. He was interested, not altogether

pleasantly, in the situation; but all his questions were unsuccessful in

inducing the butler to give any more detailed account of his experiences

in the wine-cellar.

* * * * *

We have now arrived at March 24, 1812. It was a day of curious

experiences for Stephen: a windy, noisy day, which filled the house andthe gardens with a restless impression. As Stephen stood by the fence of

the grounds, and looked out into the park, he felt as if an endless

procession of unseen people were sweeping past him on the wind, borne on

resistlessly and aimlessly, vainly striving to stop themselves, to catch

at something that might arrest their flight and bring them once again

into contact with the living world of which they had formed a part. After

luncheon that day Mr Abney said:

'Stephen, my boy, do you think you could manage to come to me tonight as

late as eleven o'clock in my study? I shall be busy until that time, and

I wish to show you something connected with your future life which it is

most important that you should know. You are not to mention this matter

to Mrs Bunch nor to anyone else in the house; and you had better go to

your room at the usual time.'

Here was a new excitement added to life: Stephen eagerly grasped at the

opportunity of sitting up till eleven o'clock. He looked in at the

library door on his way upstairs that evening, and saw a brazier, which

he had often noticed in the corner of the room, moved out before the

fire; an old silver-gilt cup stood on the table, filled with red wine,

and some written sheets of paper lay near it. Mr Abney was sprinklingsome incense on the brazier from a round silver box as Stephen passed,

18



but did not seem to notice his step.

The wind had fallen, and there was a still night and a full moon. At

about ten o'clock Stephen was standing at the open window of his bedroom,

looking out over the country. Still as the night was, the mysterious

population of the distant moon-lit woods was not yet lulled to rest. Fromtime to time strange cries as of lost and despairing wanderers sounded

from across the mere. They might be the notes of owls or water-birds, yet

they did not quite resemble either sound. Were not they coming nearer?

Now they sounded from the nearer side of the water, and in a few moments

they seemed to be floating about among the shrubberies. Then they ceased;

but just as Stephen was thinking of shutting the window and resuming his

reading of _Robinson Crusoe_, he caught sight of two figures standing on

the gravelled terrace that ran along the garden side of the Hall--the

figures of a boy and girl, as it seemed; they stood side by side, looking

up at the windows. Something in the form of the girl recalled

irresistibly his dream of the figure in the bath. The boy inspired him

with more acute fear.

Whilst the girl stood still, half smiling, with her hands clasped over

her heart, the boy, a thin shape, with black hair and ragged clothing,

raised his arms in the air with an appearance of menace and of

unappeasable hunger and longing. The moon shone upon his almost

transparent hands, and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long and

that the light shone through them. As he stood with his arms thus raised,

he disclosed a terrifying spectacle. On the left side of his chest there

opened a black and gaping rent; and there fell upon Stephen's brain,rather than upon his ear, the impression of one of those hungry and

desolate cries that he had heard resounding over the woods of Aswarby all

that evening. In another moment this dreadful pair had moved swiftly and

noiselessly over the dry gravel, and he saw them no more.

Inexpressibly frightened as he was, he determined to take his candle and

go down to Mr Abney's study, for the hour appointed for their meeting was

near at hand. The study or library opened out of the front-hall on one

side, and Stephen, urged on by his terrors, did not take long in getting

there. To effect an entrance was not so easy. It was not locked, he felt

sure, for the key was on the outside of the door as usual. His repeated

knocks produced no answer. Mr Abney was engaged: he was speaking. What!

why did he try to cry out? and why was the cry choked in his throat? Had

he, too, seen the mysterious children? But now everything was quiet, and

the door yielded to Stephen's terrified and frantic pushing.

* * * * *

On the table in Mr Abney's study certain papers were found which

explained the situation to Stephen Elliott when he was of an age to

understand them. The most important sentences were as follows:

19



'It was a belief very strongly and generally held by the ancients--of

whose wisdom in these matters I have had such experience as induces me to

place confidence in their assertions--that by enacting certain processes,

which to us moderns have something of a barbaric complexion, a very

remarkable enlightenment of the spiritual faculties in man may be

attained: that, for example, by absorbing the personalities of a certainnumber of his fellow-creatures, an individual may gain a complete

ascendancy over those orders of spiritual beings which control the

elemental forces of our universe.

'It is recorded of Simon Magus that he was able to fly in the air, to

become invisible, or to assume any form he pleased, by the agency of the

soul of a boy whom, to use the libellous phrase employed by the author of

the _Clementine Recognitions_, he had "murdered". I find it set down,

moreover, with considerable detail in the writings of Hermes

Trismegistus, that similar happy results may be produced by the

absorption of the hearts of not less than three human beings below the

age of twenty-one years. To the testing of the truth of this receipt I

have devoted the greater part of the last twenty years, selecting as the

_corpora vilia_ of my experiment such persons as could conveniently be

removed without occasioning a sensible gap in society. The first step I

effected by the removal of one Phoebe Stanley, a girl of gipsy

extraction, on March 24, 1792. The second, by the removal of a wandering

Italian lad, named Giovanni Paoli, on the night of March 23, 1805. The

final "victim"--to employ a word repugnant in the highest degree to my

feelings--must be my cousin, Stephen Elliott. His day must be this March

24, 1812.

'The best means of effecting the required absorption is to remove the

heart from the _living_ subject, to reduce it to ashes, and to mingle

them with about a pint of some red wine, preferably port. The remains of

the first two subjects, at least, it will be well to conceal: a disused

bathroom or wine-cellar will be found convenient for such a purpose. Some

annoyance may be experienced from the psychic portion of the subjects,

which popular language dignifies with the name of ghosts. But the man of

philosophic temperament--to whom alone the experiment is

appropriate--will be little prone to attach importance to the feeble

efforts of these beings to wreak their vengeance on him. I contemplate

with the liveliest satisfaction the enlarged and emancipated existence

which the experiment, if successful, will confer on me; not only placing

me beyond the reach of human justice (so-called), but eliminating to a

great extent the prospect of death itself.'

* * * * *

Mr Abney was found in his chair, his head thrown back, his face stamped

with an expression of rage, fright, and mortal pain. In his left side was

a terrible lacerated wound, exposing the heart. There was no blood on hishands, and a long knife that lay on the table was perfectly clean. A

20



savage wild-cat might have inflicted the injuries. The window of the

study was open, and it was the opinion of the coroner that Mr Abney had

met his death by the agency of some wild creature. But Stephen Elliott's

study of the papers I have quoted led him to a very different conclusion.

THE MEZZOTINT

Some time ago I believe I had the pleasure of telling you the story of an

adventure which happened to a friend of mine by the name of Dennistoun,

during his pursuit of objects of art for the museum at Cambridge.

He did not publish his experiences very widely upon his return to

England; but they could not fail to become known to a good many of his

friends, and among others to the gentleman who at that time presided over

an art museum at another University. It was to be expected that the story

should make a considerable impression on the mind of a man whose vocation

lay in lines similar to Dennistoun's, and that he should be eager to

catch at any explanation of the matter which tended to make it seem

improbable that he should ever be called upon to deal with so agitating

an emergency. It was, indeed, somewhat consoling to him to reflect that

he was not expected to acquire ancient MSS. for his institution; that was

the business of the Shelburnian Library. The authorities of that

institution might, if they pleased, ransack obscure corners of the

Continent for such matters. He was glad to be obliged at the moment toconfine his attention to enlarging the already unsurpassed collection of

English topographical drawings and engravings possessed by his museum.

Yet, as it turned out, even a department so homely and familiar as this

may have its dark corners, and to one of these Mr Williams was

unexpectedly introduced.

Those who have taken even the most limited interest in the acquisition of

topographical pictures are aware that there is one London dealer whose

aid is indispensable to their researches. Mr J. W. Britnell publishes at

short intervals very admirable catalogues of a large and constantly

changing stock of engravings, plans, and old sketches of mansions,

churches, and towns in England and Wales. These catalogues were, of

course, the ABC of his subject to Mr Williams: but as his museum already

contained an enormous accumulation of topographical pictures, he was a

regular, rather than a copious, buyer; and he rather looked to Mr

Britnell to fill up gaps in the rank and file of his collection than to

supply him with rarities.

Now, in February of last year there appeared upon Mr Williams's desk at

the museum a catalogue from Mr Britnell's emporium, and accompanying it

was a typewritten communication from the dealer himself. This latter ranas follows:

21



Dear Sir,

We beg to call your attention to No. 978 in our accompanying

catalogue, which we shall be glad to send on approval.

Yours faithfully,

J. W. Britnell.

To turn to No. 978 in the accompanying catalogue was with Mr. Williams

(as he observed to himself) the work of a moment, and in the place

indicated he found the following entry:

978.--_Unknown._ Interesting mezzotint: View of a manor-house, early

part of the century. 15 by 10 inches; black frame. L2 2s.

It was not specially exciting, and the price seemed high. However, as Mr

Britnell, who knew his business and his customer, seemed to set store by

it, Mr Williams wrote a postcard asking for the article to be sent on

approval, along with some other engravings and sketches which appeared in

the same catalogue. And so he passed without much excitement of

anticipation to the ordinary labours of the day.

A parcel of any kind always arrives a day later than you expect it, and

that of Mr Britnell proved, as I believe the right phrase goes, no

exception to the rule. It was delivered at the museum by the afternoonpost of Saturday, after Mr Williams had left his work, and it was

accordingly brought round to his rooms in college by the attendant, in

order that he might not have to wait over Sunday before looking through

it and returning such of the contents as he did not propose to keep. And

here he found it when he came in to tea, with a friend.

The only item with which I am concerned was the rather large,

black-framed mezzotint of which I have already quoted the short

description given in Mr Britnell's catalogue. Some more details of it

will have to be given, though I cannot hope to put before you the look of

the picture as clearly as it is present to my own eye. Very nearly the

exact duplicate of it may be seen in a good many old inn parlours, or in

the passages of undisturbed country mansions at the present moment. It

was a rather indifferent mezzotint, and an indifferent mezzotint is,

perhaps, the worst form of engraving known. It presented a full-face view

of a not very large manor-house of the last century, with three rows of

plain sashed windows with rusticated masonry about them, a parapet with

balls or vases at the angles, and a small portico in the centre. On

either side were trees, and in front a considerable expanse of lawn. The

legend _A. W. F. sculpsit_ was engraved on the narrow margin; and there

was no further inscription. The whole thing gave the impression that itwas the work of an amateur. What in the world Mr Britnell could mean by

22



affixing the price of L2 2s. to such an object was more than Mr Williams

could imagine. He turned it over with a good deal of contempt; upon the

back was a paper label, the left-hand half of which had been torn off.

All that remained were the ends of two lines of writing; the first had

the letters--_ngley Hall_; the second,--_ssex_.

It would, perhaps, be just worth while to identify the place represented,

which he could easily do with the help of a gazetteer, and then he would

send it back to Mr Britnell, with some remarks reflecting upon the

judgement of that gentleman.

He lighted the candles, for it was now dark, made the tea, and supplied

the friend with whom he had been playing golf (for I believe the

authorities of the University I write of indulge in that pursuit by way

of relaxation); and tea was taken to the accompaniment of a discussion

which golfing persons can imagine for themselves, but which the

conscientious writer has no right to inflict upon any non-golfing

persons.

The conclusion arrived at was that certain strokes might have been

better, and that in certain emergencies neither player had experienced

that amount of luck which a human being has a right to expect. It was now

that the friend--let us call him Professor Binks--took up the framed

engraving and said:

'What's this place, Williams?'

'Just what I am going to try to find out,' said Williams, going to the

shelf for a gazetteer. 'Look at the back. Somethingley Hall, either in

Sussex or Essex. Half the name's gone, you see. You don't happen to know

it, I suppose?'

'It's from that man Britnell, I suppose, isn't it?' said Binks. 'Is it

for the museum?'

'Well, I think I should buy it if the price was five shillings,' said

Williams; 'but for some unearthly reason he wants two guineas for it. I

can't conceive why. It's a wretched engraving, and there aren't even any

figures to give it life.'

'It's not worth two guineas, I should think,' said Binks; 'but I don't

think it's so badly done. The moonlight seems rather good to me; and I

should have thought there _were_ figures, or at least a figure, just on

the edge in front.'

'Let's look,' said Williams. 'Well, it's true the light is rather

cleverly given. Where's your figure? Oh, yes! Just the head, in the very

front of the picture.'

23



And indeed there was--hardly more than a black blot on the extreme edge

of the engraving--the head of a man or woman, a good deal muffled up, the

back turned to the spectator, and looking towards the house.

Williams had not noticed it before.

'Still,' he said, 'though it's a cleverer thing than I thought, I can't

spend two guineas of museum money on a picture of a place I don't know.'

Professor Binks had his work to do, and soon went; and very nearly up to

Hall time Williams was engaged in a vain attempt to identify the subject

of his picture. 'If the vowel before the _ng_ had only been left, it

would have been easy enough,' he thought; 'but as it is, the name may be

anything from Guestingley to Langley, and there are many more names

ending like this than I thought; and this rotten book has no index of

terminations.'

Hall in Mr Williams's college was at seven. It need not be dwelt upon;

the less so as he met there colleagues who had been playing golf during

the afternoon, and words with which we have no concern were freely

bandied across the table--merely golfing words, I would hasten to

explain.

I suppose an hour or more to have been spent in what is called

common-room after dinner. Later in the evening some few retired to

Williams's rooms, and I have little doubt that whist was played and

tobacco smoked. During a lull in these operations Williams picked up themezzotint from the table without looking at it, and handed it to a person

mildly interested in art, telling him where it had come from, and the

other particulars which we already know.

The gentleman took it carelessly, looked at it, then said, in a tone of

some interest:

'It's really a very good piece of work, Williams; it has quite a feeling

of the romantic period. The light is admirably managed, it seems to me,

and the figure, though it's rather too grotesque, is somehow very

impressive.'

'Yes, isn't it?' said Williams, who was just then busy giving whisky and

soda to others of the company, and was unable to come across the room to

look at the view again.

It was by this time rather late in the evening, and the visitors were on

the move. After they went Williams was obliged to write a letter or two

and clear up some odd bits of work. At last, some time past midnight, he

was disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after lighting his

bedroom candle. The picture lay face upwards on the table where the lastman who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the

24



lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor,

and he declares now if he had been left in the dark at that moment he

would have had a fit. But, as that did not happen, he was able to put

down the light on the table and take a good look at the picture. It was

indubitable--rankly impossible, no doubt, but absolutely certain. In the

middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure whereno figure had been at five o'clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all

fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment

with a white cross on the back.

I do not know what is the ideal course to pursue in a situation of this

kind, I can only tell you what Mr Williams did. He took the picture by

one corner and carried it across the passage to a second set of rooms

which he possessed. There he locked it up in a drawer, sported the doors

of both sets of rooms, and retired to bed; but first he wrote out and

signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had

undergone since it had come into his possession.

Sleep visited him rather late; but it was consoling to reflect that the

behaviour of the picture did not depend upon his own unsupported

testimony. Evidently the man who had looked at it the night before had

seen something of the same kind as he had, otherwise he might have been

tempted to think that something gravely wrong was happening either to his

eyes or his mind. This possibility being fortunately precluded, two

matters awaited him on the morrow. He must take stock of the picture very

carefully, and call in a witness for the purpose, and he must make a

determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was represented. Hewould therefore ask his neighbour Nisbet to breakfast with him, and he

would subsequently spend a morning over the gazetteer.

Nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about 9.20. His host was not quite

dressed, I am sorry to say, even at this late hour. During breakfast

nothing was said about the mezzotint by Williams, save that he had a

picture on which he wished for Nisbet's opinion. But those who are

familiar with University life can picture for themselves the wide and

delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two Fellows

of Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning

breakfast. Hardly a topic was left unchallenged, from golf to

lawn-tennis. Yet I am bound to say that Williams was rather distraught;

for his interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which was

now reposing, face downwards, in the drawer in the room opposite.

The morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for

which he looked. With very considerable--almost tremulous--excitement he

ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture--still face

downwards--ran back, and put it into Nisbet's hands.

'Now,' he said, 'Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see inthat picture. Describe it, if you don't mind, rather minutely. I'll tell

25



you why afterwards.'

'Well,' said Nisbet, 'I have here a view of a country-house--English, I

presume--by moonlight.'

'Moonlight? You're sure of that?'

'Certainly. The moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for details,

and there are clouds in the sky.'

'All right. Go on. I'll swear,' added Williams in an aside, 'there was no

moon when I saw it first.'

'Well, there's not much more to be said,' Nisbet continued. 'The house

has one--two--three rows of windows, five in each row, except at the

bottom, where there's a porch instead of the middle one, and--'

'But what about figures?' said Williams, with marked interest.

'There aren't any,' said Nisbet; 'but--'

'What! No figure on the grass in front?'

'Not a thing.'

'You'll swear to that?'

'Certainly I will. But there's just one other thing.'

'What?'

'Why, one of the windows on the ground-floor--left of the door--is open.'

'Is it really so? My goodness! he must have got in,' said Williams, with

great excitement; and he hurried to the back of the sofa on which Nisbet

was sitting, and, catching the picture from him, verified the matter for

himself.

It was quite true. There was no figure, and there was the open window.

Williams, after a moment of speechless surprise, went to the

writing-table and scribbled for a short time. Then he brought two papers

to Nisbet, and asked him first to sign one--it was his own description of

the picture, which you have just heard--and then to read the other which

was Williams's statement written the night before.

'What can it all mean?' said Nisbet.

'Exactly,' said Williams. 'Well, one thing I must do--or three things,now I think of it. I must find out from Garwood'--this was his last

26



night's visitor--'what he saw, and then I must get the thing photographed

before it goes further, and then I must find out what the place is.'

'I can do the photographing myself,' said Nisbet, 'and I will. But, you

know, it looks very much as if we were assisting at the working out of a

tragedy somewhere. The question is, has it happened already, or is itgoing to come off? You must find out what the place is. Yes,' he said,

looking at the picture again, 'I expect you're right: he has got in. And

if I don't mistake, there'll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms

upstairs.'

'I'll tell you what,' said Williams: 'I'll take the picture across to old

Green' (this was the senior Fellow of the College, who had been Bursar

for many years). 'It's quite likely he'll know it. We have property in

Essex and Sussex, and he must have been over the two counties a lot in

his time.'

'Quite likely he will,' said Nisbet; 'but just let me take my photograph

first. But look here, I rather think Green isn't up today. He wasn't in

Hall last night, and I think I heard him say he was going down for the

Sunday.'

'That's true, too,' said Williams; 'I know he's gone to Brighton. Well,

if you'll photograph it now, I'll go across to Garwood and get his

statement, and you keep an eye on it while I'm gone. I'm beginning to

think two guineas is not a very exorbitant price for it now.'

In a short time he had returned, and brought Mr Garwood with him.

Garwood's statement was to the effect that the figure, when he had seen

it, was clear of the edge of the picture, but had not got far across the

lawn. He remembered a white mark on the back of its drapery, but could

not have been sure it was a cross. A document to this effect was then

drawn up and signed, and Nisbet proceeded to photograph the picture.

'Now what do you mean to do?' he said

'Are you going to sit and watch it

all day?'

'Well, no, I think not,' said Williams. 'I rather imagine we're meant to

see the whole thing. You see, between the time I saw it last night and

this morning there was time for lots of things to happen, but the

creature only got into the house. It could easily have got through its

business in the time and gone to its own place again; but the fact of the

window being open, I think, must mean that it's in there now. So I feel

quite easy about leaving it. And besides, I have a kind of idea that it

wouldn't change much, if at all, in the daytime. We might go out for a

walk this afternoon, and come in to tea, or whenever it gets dark. Ishall leave it out on the table here, and sport the door. My skip can get

27



in, but no one else.'

The three agreed that this would be a good plan; and, further, that if

they spent the afternoon together they would be less likely to talk about

the business to other people; for any rumour of such a transaction as was

going on would bring the whole of the Phasmatological Society about their ears.

We may give them a respite until five o'clock.

At or near that hour the three were entering Williams's staircase. They

were at first slightly annoyed to see that the door of his rooms was

unsported;

but in a moment it was remembered that on Sunday the skips

came for orders an hour or so earlier than on weekdays. However, a

surprise was awaiting them. The first thing they saw was the pictureleaning up against a pile of books on the table, as it had been left, and

the next thing was Williams's skip, seated on a chair opposite, gazing at

it with undisguised horror. How was this? Mr Filcher (the name is not my

own invention) was a servant of considerable standing, and set the

standard of etiquette to all his own college and to several neighbouring

ones, and nothing could be more alien to his practice than to be found

sitting on his master's chair, or appearing to take any particular notice

of his master's furniture or pictures. Indeed, he seemed to feel this

himself. He started violently when the three men were in the room, and

got up with a marked effort. Then he said:

'I ask your pardon, sir, for taking such a freedom as to set down.'

'Not at all, Robert,' interposed Mr Williams. 'I was meaning to ask you

some time what you thought of that picture.'

'Well, sir, of course I don't set up my opinion against yours, but it

ain't the pictur I should 'ang where my little girl could see it, sir.'

'Wouldn't you, Robert? Why not?'

'No, sir. Why, the pore child, I recollect once she see a Door Bible,

with pictures not 'alf what that is, and we 'ad to set up with her three

or four nights afterwards, if you'll believe me; and if she was to ketch

a sight of this skelinton here, or whatever it is, carrying off the pore

baby, she would be in a taking. You know 'ow it is with children; 'ow

nervish they git with a little thing and all. But what I should say, it

don't seem a right pictur to be laying about, sir, not where anyone

that's liable to be startled could come on it. Should you be wanting

anything this evening, sir? Thank you, sir.'

With these words the excellent man went to continue the round of his

28



masters, and you may be sure the gentlemen whom he left lost no time in

gathering round the engraving. There was the house, as before under the

waning moon and the drifting clouds. The window that had been open was

shut, and the figure was once more on the lawn: but not this time

crawling cautiously on hands and knees. Now it was erect and stepping

swiftly, with long strides, towards the front of the picture. The moonwas behind it, and the black drapery hung down over its face so that only

hints of that could be seen, and what was visible made the spectators

profoundly thankful that they could see no more than a white dome-like

forehead and a few straggling hairs. The head was bent down, and the arms

were tightly clasped over an object which could be dimly seen and

identified as a child, whether dead or living it was not possible to say.

The legs of the appearance alone could be plainly discerned, and they

were horribly thin.

From five to seven the three companions sat and watched the picture by

turns. But it never changed. They agreed at last that it would be safe to

leave it, and that they would return after Hall and await further

developments.

When they assembled again, at the earliest possible moment, the engraving

was there, but the figure was gone, and the house was quiet under the

moonbeams. There was nothing for it but to spend the evening over

gazetteers and guide-books. Williams was the lucky one at last, and

perhaps he deserved it. At 11.30 p.m. he read from Murray's _Guide to

Essex_the following lines:

16-1/2 miles, _Anningley_. The church has been an interesting

building of Norman date, but was extensively classicized in the last

century. It contains the tomb of the family of Francis, whose

mansion, Anningley Hall, a solid Queen Anne house, stands immediately

beyond the churchyard in a park of about 80 acres. The family is now

extinct, the last heir having disappeared mysteriously in infancy in

the year 1802. The father, Mr Arthur Francis, was locally known as a

talented amateur engraver in mezzotint. After his son's disappearance

he lived in complete retirement at the Hall, and was found dead in

his studio on the third anniversary of the disaster, having just

completed an engraving of the house, impressions of which are of

considerable rarity.

This looked like business, and, indeed, Mr Green on his return at once

identified the house as Anningley Hall.

'Is there any kind of explanation of the figure, Green?' was the question

which Williams naturally asked.

'I don't know, I'm sure, Williams. What used to be said in the place when

I first knew it, which was before I came up here, was just this: oldFrancis was always very much down on these poaching fellows, and whenever

29



he got a chance he used to get a man whom he suspected of it turned off

the estate, and by degrees he got rid of them all but one. Squires could

do a lot of things then that they daren't think of now. Well, this man

that was left was what you find pretty often in that country--the last

remains of a very old family. I believe they were Lords of the Manor at

one time. I recollect just the same thing in my own parish.'

'What, like the man in _Tess o' the Durbervilles_?' Williams put in.

'Yes, I dare say; it's not a book I could ever read myself. But this

fellow could show a row of tombs in the church there that belonged to his

ancestors, and all that went to sour him a bit; but Francis, they said,

could never get at him--he always kept just on the right side of the

law--until one night the keepers found him at it in a wood right at the

end of the estate. I could show you the place now; it marches with some

land that used to belong to an uncle of mine. And you can imagine there

was a row; and this man Gawdy (that was the name, to be sure--Gawdy; I

thought I should get it--Gawdy), he was unlucky enough, poor chap! to

shoot a keeper. Well, that was what Francis wanted, and grand juries--you

know what they would have been then--and poor Gawdy was strung up in

double-quick time; and I've been shown the place he was buried in, on the

north side of the church--you know the way in that part of the world:

anyone that's been hanged or made away with themselves, they bury them

that side. And the idea was that some friend of Gawdy's--not a relation,

because he had none, poor devil! he was the last of his line: kind of

_spes ultima gentis_--must have planned to get hold of Francis's boy and

put an end to _his_ line, too. I don't know--it's rather anout-of-the-way thing for an Essex poacher to think of--but, you know, I

should say now it looks more as if old Gawdy had managed the job himself.

Booh! I hate to think of it! have some whisky, Williams!'

The facts were communicated by Williams to Dennistoun, and by him to a

mixed company, of which I was one, and the Sadducean Professor of

Ophiology another. I am sorry to say that the latter when asked what he

thought of it, only remarked: 'Oh, those Bridgeford people will say

anything'--a sentiment which met with the reception it deserved.

I have only to add that the picture is now in the Ashleian Museum; that

it has been treated with a view to discovering whether sympathetic ink

has been used in it, but without effect; that Mr Britnell knew nothing of

it save that he was sure it was uncommon; and that, though carefully

watched, it has never been known to change again.

THE ASH-TREE

Everyone who has travelled over Eastern England knows the smaller

30



country-houses with which it is studded--the rather dank little

buildings, usually in the Italian style, surrounded with parks of some

eighty to a hundred acres. For me they have always had a very strong

attraction, with the grey paling of split oak, the noble trees, the meres

with their reed-beds, and the line of distant woods. Then, I like the

pillared portico--perhaps stuck on to a red-brick Queen Anne house whichhas been faced with stucco to bring it into line with the 'Grecian' taste

of the end of the eighteenth century; the hall inside, going up to the

roof, which hall ought always to be provided with a gallery and a small

organ. I like the library, too, where you may find anything from a

Psalter of the thirteenth century to a Shakespeare quarto. I like the

pictures, of course; and perhaps most of all I like fancying what life in

such a house was when it was first built, and in the piping times of

landlords' prosperity, and not least now, when, if money is not so

plentiful, taste is more varied and life quite as interesting. I wish to

have one of these houses, and enough money to keep it together and

entertain my friends in it modestly.

But this is a digression. I have to tell you of a curious series of

events which happened in such a house as I have tried to describe. It is

Castringham Hall in Suffolk. I think a good deal has been done to the

building since the period of my story, but the essential features I have

sketched are still there--Italian portico, square block of white house,

older inside than out, park with fringe of woods, and mere. The one

feature that marked out the house from a score of others is gone. As you

looked at it from the park, you saw on the right a great old ash-tree

growing within half a dozen yards of the wall, and almost or quitetouching the building with its branches. I suppose it had stood there

ever since Castringham ceased to be a fortified place, and since the moat

was filled in and the Elizabethan dwelling-house built. At any rate, it

had well-nigh attained its full dimensions in the year 1690.

In that year the district in which the Hall is situated was the scene of

a number of witch-trials. It will be long, I think, before we arrive at a

just estimate of the amount of solid reason--if there was any--which lay

at the root of the universal fear of witches in old times. Whether the

persons accused of this offence really did imagine that they were

possessed of unusual power of any kind; or whether they had the will at

least, if not the power, of doing mischief to their neighbours; or

whether all the confessions, of which there are so many, were extorted by

the cruelty of the witch-finders--these are questions which are not, I

fancy, yet solved. And the present narrative gives me pause. I cannot

altogether sweep it away as mere invention. The reader must judge for

himself.

Castringham contributed a victim to the _auto-da-fe_. Mrs Mothersole was

her name, and she differed from the ordinary run of village witches only

in being rather better off and in a more influential position. Effortswere made to save her by several reputable farmers of the parish. They

31



did their best to testify to her character, and showed considerable

anxiety as to the verdict of the jury.

But what seems to have been fatal to the woman was the evidence of the

then proprietor of Castringham Hall--Sir Matthew Fell. He deposed to

having watched her on three different occasions from his window, at thefull of the moon, gathering sprigs 'from the ash-tree near my house'. She

had climbed into the branches, clad only in her shift, and was cutting

off small twigs with a peculiarly curved knife, and as she did so she

seemed to be talking to herself. On each occasion Sir Matthew had done

his best to capture the woman, but she had always taken alarm at some

accidental noise he had made, and all he could see when he got down to

the garden was a hare running across the path in the direction of the

village.

On the third night he had been at the pains to follow at his best speed,

and had gone straight to Mrs Mothersole's house; but he had had to wait a

quarter of an hour battering at her door, and then she had come out very

cross, and apparently very sleepy, as if just out of bed; and he had no

good explanation to offer of his visit.

Mainly on this evidence, though there was much more of a less striking

and unusual kind from other parishioners, Mrs Mothersole was found guilty

and condemned to die. She was hanged a week after the trial, with five or

six more unhappy creatures, at Bury St Edmunds.

Sir Matthew Fell, then Deputy-Sheriff, was present at the execution. Itwas a damp, drizzly March morning when the cart made its way up the rough

grass hill outside Northgate, where the gallows stood. The other victims

were apathetic or broken down with misery; but Mrs Mothersole was, as in

life so in death, of a very different temper. Her 'poysonous Rage', as a

reporter of the time puts it, 'did so work upon the Bystanders--yea, even

upon the Hangman--that it was constantly affirmed of all that saw her

that she presented the living Aspect of a mad Divell. Yet she offer'd no

Resistance to the Officers of the Law; onely she looked upon those that

laid Hands upon her with so direfull and venomous an Aspect that--as one

of them afterwards assured me--the meer Thought of it preyed inwardly

upon his Mind for six Months after.'

However, all that she is reported to have said were the seemingly

meaningless words: 'There will be guests at the Hall.' Which she repeated

more than once in an undertone.

Sir Matthew Fell was not unimpressed by the bearing of the woman. He had

some talk upon the matter with the Vicar of his parish, with whom he

travelled home after the assize business was over. His evidence at the

trial had not been very willingly given; he was not specially infected

with the witch-finding mania, but he declared, then and afterwards, thathe could not give any other account of the matter than that he had given,

32



and that he could not possibly have been mistaken as to what he saw. The

whole transaction had been repugnant to him, for he was a man who liked

to be on pleasant terms with those about him; but he saw a duty to be

done in this business, and he had done it. That seems to have been the

gist of his sentiments, and the Vicar applauded it, as any reasonable man

must have done.

A few weeks after, when the moon of May was at the full, Vicar and Squire

met again in the park, and walked to the Hall together. Lady Fell was

with her mother, who was dangerously ill, and Sir Matthew was alone at

home; so the Vicar, Mr Crome, was easily persuaded to take a late supper

at the Hall.

Sir Matthew was not very good company this evening. The talk ran chiefly

on family and parish matters, and, as luck would have it, Sir Matthew

made a memorandum in writing of certain wishes or intentions of his

regarding his estates, which afterwards proved exceedingly useful.

When Mr Crome thought of starting for home, about half past nine o'clock,

Sir Matthew and he took a preliminary turn on the gravelled walk at the

back of the house. The only incident that struck Mr Crome was this: they

were in sight of the ash-tree which I described as growing near the

windows of the building, when Sir Matthew stopped and said:

'What is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash? It is never a

squirrel? They will all be in their nests by now.'

The Vicar looked and saw the moving creature, but he could make nothing

of its colour in the moonlight. The sharp outline, however, seen for an

instant, was imprinted on his brain, and he could have sworn, he said,

though it sounded foolish, that, squirrel or not, it had more than four

legs.

Still, not much was to be made of the momentary vision, and the two men

parted. They may have met since then, but it was not for a score of

years.

Next day Sir Matthew Fell was not downstairs at six in the morning, as

was his custom, nor at seven, nor yet at eight. Hereupon the servants

went and knocked at his chamber door. I need not prolong the description

of their anxious listenings and renewed batterings on the panels. The

door was opened at last from the outside, and they found their master

dead and black. So much you have guessed. That there were any marks of

violence did not at the moment appear; but the window was open.

One of the men went to fetch the parson, and then by his directions rode

on to give notice to the coroner. Mr Crome himself went as quick as he

might to the Hall, and was shown to the room where the dead man lay. Hehas left some notes among his papers which show how genuine a respect and

33



sorrow was felt for Sir Matthew, and there is also this passage, which I

transcribe for the sake of the light it throws upon the course of events,

and also upon the common beliefs of the time:

'There was not any the least Trace of an Entrance having been forc'd to

the Chamber: but the Casement stood open, as my poor Friend would alwayshave it in this Season. He had his Evening Drink of small Ale in a silver

vessel of about a pint measure, and tonight had not drunk it out. This

Drink was examined by the Physician from Bury, a Mr Hodgkins, who could

not, however, as he afterwards declar'd upon his Oath, before the

Coroner's quest, discover that any matter of a venomous kind was present

in it. For, as was natural, in the great Swelling and Blackness of the

Corpse, there was talk made among the Neighbours of Poyson. The Body was

very much Disorder'd as it laid in the Bed, being twisted after so

extream a sort as gave too probable Conjecture that my worthy Friend and

Patron had expir'd in great Pain and Agony. And what is as yet

unexplain'd, and to myself the Argument of some Horrid and Artfull

Designe in the Perpetrators of this Barbarous Murther, was this, that the

Women which were entrusted with the laying-out of the Corpse and washing

it, being both sad Pearsons and very well Respected in their Mournfull

Profession, came to me in a great Pain and Distress both of Mind and

Body, saying, what was indeed confirmed upon the first View, that they

had no sooner touch'd the Breast of the Corpse with their naked Hands

than they were sensible of a more than ordinary violent Smart and Acheing

in their Palms, which, with their whole Forearms, in no long time swell'd

so immoderately, the Pain still continuing, that, as afterwards proved,

during many weeks they were forc'd to lay by the exercise of their Calling; and yet no mark seen on the Skin.

'Upon hearing this, I sent for the Physician, who was still in the House,

and we made as carefull a Proof as we were able by the Help of a small

Magnifying Lens of Crystal of the condition of the Skinn on this Part of

the Body: but could not detect with the Instrument we had any Matter of

Importance beyond a couple of small Punctures or Pricks, which we then

concluded were the Spotts by which the Poyson might be introduced,

remembering that Ring of _Pope Borgia_, with other known Specimens of the

Horrid Art of the Italian Poysoners of the last age.

'So much is to be said of the Symptoms seen on the Corpse. As to what I

am to add, it is meerly my own Experiment, and to be left to Posterity to

judge whether there be anything of Value therein. There was on the Table

by the Beddside a Bible of the small size, in which my Friend--punctuall

as in Matters of less Moment, so in this more weighty one--used nightly,

and upon his First Rising, to read a sett Portion. And I taking it

up--not without a Tear duly paid to him wich from the Study of this

poorer Adumbration was now pass'd to the contemplation of its great

Originall--it came into my Thoughts, as at such moments of Helplessness

we are prone to catch at any the least Glimmer that makes promise of Light, to make trial of that old and by many accounted Superstitious

34



Practice of drawing the _Sortes;_ of which a Principall Instance, in the

case of his late Sacred Majesty the Blessed Martyr King _Charles_ and my

Lord _Falkland_, was now much talked of. I must needs admit that by my

Trial not much Assistance was afforded me: yet, as the Cause and Origin

of these Dreadfull Events may hereafter be search'd out, I set down the

Results, in the case it may be found that they pointed the true Quarter of the Mischief to a quicker Intelligence than my own.

'I made, then, three trials, opening the Book and placing my Finger upon

certain Words: which gave in the first these words, from Luke xiii. 7,

_Cut it down_; in the second, Isaiah xiii. 20, _It shall never be

inhabited_; and upon the third Experiment, Job xxxix. 30, _Her young ones

also suck up blood_.'

This is all that need be quoted from Mr Crome's papers. Sir Matthew Fell

was duly coffined and laid into the earth, and his funeral sermon,

preached by Mr Crome on the following Sunday, has been printed under the

title of 'The Unsearchable Way; or, England's Danger and the Malicious

Dealings of Antichrist', it being the Vicar's view, as well as that most

commonly held in the neighbourhood, that the Squire was the victim of a

recrudescence of the Popish Plot.

His son, Sir Matthew the second, succeeded to the title and estates. And

so ends the first act of the Castringham tragedy. It is to be mentioned,

though the fact is not surprising, that the new Baronet did not occupy

the room in which his father had died. Nor, indeed, was it slept in by

anyone but an occasional visitor during the whole of his occupation. Hedied in 1735, and I do not find that anything particular marked his

reign, save a curiously constant mortality among his cattle and

live-stock in general, which showed a tendency to increase slightly as

time went on.

Those who are interested in the details will find a statistical account

in a letter to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of 1772, which draws the facts

from the Baronet's own papers. He put an end to it at last by a very

simple expedient, that of shutting up all his beasts in sheds at night,

and keeping no sheep in his park. For he had noticed that nothing was

ever attacked that spent the night indoors. After that the disorder

confined itself to wild birds, and beasts of chase. But as we have no

good account of the symptoms, and as all-night watching was quite

unproductive of any clue, I do not dwell on what the Suffolk farmers

called the 'Castringham sickness'.

The second Sir Matthew died in 1735, as I said, and was duly succeeded by

his son, Sir Richard. It was in his time that the great family pew was

built out on the north side of the parish church. So large were the

Squire's ideas that several of the graves on that unhallowed side of the

building had to be disturbed to satisfy his requirements. Among them wasthat of Mrs Mothersole, the position of which was accurately known,

35



thanks to a note on a plan of the church and yard, both made by Mr Crome.

A certain amount of interest was excited in the village when it was known

that the famous witch, who was still remembered by a few, was to be

exhumed. And the feeling of surprise, and indeed disquiet, was very

strong when it was found that, though her coffin was fairly sound andunbroken, there was no trace whatever inside it of body, bones, or dust.

Indeed, it is a curious phenomenon, for at the time of her burying no

such things were dreamt of as resurrection-men, and it is difficult to

conceive any rational motive for stealing a body otherwise than for the

uses of the dissecting-room.

The incident revived for a time all the stories of witch-trials and of

the exploits of the witches, dormant for forty years, and Sir Richard's

orders that the coffin should be burnt were thought by a good many to be

rather foolhardy, though they were duly carried out.

Sir Richard was a pestilent innovator, it is certain. Before his time the

Hall had been a fine block of the mellowest red brick; but Sir Richard

had travelled in Italy and become infected with the Italian taste, and,

having more money than his predecessors, he determined to leave an

Italian palace where he had found an English house. So stucco and ashlar

masked the brick; some indifferent Roman marbles were planted about in

the entrance-hall and gardens; a reproduction of the Sibyl's temple at

Tivoli was erected on the opposite bank of the mere; and Castringham took

on an entirely new, and, I must say, a less engaging, aspect. But it was

much admired, and served as a model to a good many of the neighbouringgentry in after-years.

* * * * *

One morning (it was in 1754) Sir Richard woke after a night of

discomfort. It had been windy, and his chimney had smoked persistently,

and yet it was so cold that he must keep up a fire. Also something had so

rattled about the window that no man could get a moment's peace. Further,

there was the prospect of several guests of position arriving in the

course of the day, who would expect sport of some kind, and the inroads

of the distemper (which continued among his game) had been lately so

serious that he was afraid for his reputation as a game-preserver. But

what really touched him most nearly was the other matter of his sleepless

night. He could certainly not sleep in that room again.

That was the chief subject of his meditations at breakfast, and after it

he began a systematic examination of the rooms to see which would suit

his notions best. It was long before he found one. This had a window with

an eastern aspect and that with a northern; this door the servants would

be always passing, and he did not like the bedstead in that. No, he must

have a room with a western look-out, so that the sun could not wake himearly, and it must be out of the way of the business of the house. The

36



housekeeper was at the end of her resources.

'Well, Sir Richard,' she said, 'you know that there is but the one room

like that in the house.'

'Which may that be?' said Sir Richard.

'And that is Sir Matthew's--the West Chamber.'

'Well, put me in there, for there I'll lie tonight,' said her master.

'Which way is it? Here, to be sure'; and he hurried off.

'Oh, Sir Richard, but no one has slept there these forty years. The air

has hardly been changed since Sir Matthew died there.'

Thus she spoke, and rustled after him.

'Come, open the door, Mrs Chiddock. I'll see the chamber, at least.'

So it was opened, and, indeed, the smell was very close and earthy. Sir

Richard crossed to the window, and, impatiently, as was his wont, threw

the shutters back, and flung open the casement. For this end of the house

was one which the alterations had barely touched, grown up as it was with

the great ash-tree, and being otherwise concealed from view.

'Air it, Mrs Chiddock, all today, and move my bed-furniture in in the

afternoon. Put the Bishop of Kilmore in my old room.'

'Pray, Sir Richard,' said a new voice, breaking in on this speech, 'might

I have the favour of a moment's interview?'

Sir Richard turned round and saw a man in black in the doorway, who

bowed.

'I must ask your indulgence for this intrusion, Sir Richard. You will,

perhaps, hardly remember me. My name is William Crome, and my grandfather

was Vicar in your grandfather's time.'

'Well, sir,' said Sir Richard, 'the name of Crome is always a passport to

Castringham. I am glad to renew a friendship of two generations'

standing. In what can I serve you? for your hour of calling--and, if I do

not mistake you, your bearing--shows you to be in some haste.'

'That is no more than the truth, sir. I am riding from Norwich to Bury St

Edmunds with what haste I can make, and I have called in on my way to

leave with you some papers which we have but just come upon in looking

over what my grandfather left at his death. It is thought you may find

some matters of family interest in them.'

37



'You are mighty obliging, Mr Crome, and, if you will be so good as to

follow me to the parlour, and drink a glass of wine, we will take a first

look at these same papers together. And you, Mrs Chiddock, as I said, be

about airing this chamber.... Yes, it is here my grandfather died....

Yes, the tree, perhaps, does make the place a little dampish.... No; I do

not wish to listen to any more. Make no difficulties, I beg. You haveyour orders--go. Will you follow me, sir?'

They went to the study. The packet which young Mr Crome had brought--he

was then just become a Fellow of Clare Hall in Cambridge, I may say, and

subsequently brought out a respectable edition of Polyaenus--contained

among other things the notes which the old Vicar had made upon the

occasion of Sir Matthew Fell's death. And for the first time Sir Richard

was confronted with the enigmatical _Sortes Biblicae_ which you have

heard. They amused him a good deal.

'Well,' he said, 'my grandfather's Bible gave one prudent piece of

advice--_Cut it down_. If that stands for the ash-tree, he may rest

assured I shall not neglect it. Such a nest of catarrhs and agues was

never seen.'

The parlour contained the family books, which, pending the arrival of a

collection which Sir Richard had made in Italy, and the building of a

proper room to receive them, were not many in number.

Sir Richard looked up from the paper to the bookcase.

'I wonder,' says he, 'whether the old prophet is there yet? I fancy I see

him.'

Crossing the room, he took out a dumpy Bible, which, sure enough, bore on

the flyleaf the inscription: 'To Matthew Fell, from his Loving Godmother,

Anne Aldous, 2 September 1659.'

'It would be no bad plan to test him again, Mr Crome. I will wager we get

a couple of names in the Chronicles. H'm! what have we here? "Thou shalt

seek me in the morning, and I shall not be." Well, well! Your grandfather

would have made a fine omen of that, hey? No more prophets for me! They

are all in a tale. And now, Mr Crome, I am infinitely obliged to you for

your packet. You will, I fear, be impatient to get on. Pray allow

me--another glass.'

So with offers of hospitality, which were genuinely meant (for Sir

Richard thought well of the young man's address and manner), they parted.

In the afternoon came the guests--the Bishop of Kilmore, Lady Mary

Hervey, Sir William Kentfield, etc. Dinner at five, wine, cards, supper,

and dispersal to bed.

38



Next morning Sir Richard is disinclined to take his gun with the rest. He

talks with the Bishop of Kilmore. This prelate, unlike a good many of the

Irish Bishops of his day, had visited his see, and, indeed, resided

there, for some considerable time. This morning, as the two were walking

along the terrace and talking over the alterations and improvements in

the house, the Bishop said, pointing to the window of the West Room:

'You could never get one of my Irish flock to occupy that room, Sir

Richard.'

'Why is that, my lord? It is, in fact, my own.'

'Well, our Irish peasantry will always have it that it brings the worst

of luck to sleep near an ash-tree, and you have a fine growth of ash not

two yards from your chamber window. Perhaps,' the Bishop went on, with a

smile, 'it has given you a touch of its quality already, for you do not

seem, if I may say it, so much the fresher for your night's rest as your

friends would like to see you.'

'That, or something else, it is true, cost me my sleep from twelve to

four, my lord. But the tree is to come down tomorrow, so I shall not hear

much more from it.'

'I applaud your determination. It can hardly be wholesome to have the air

you breathe strained, as it were, through all that leafage.'

'Your lordship is right there, I think. But I had not my window open lastnight. It was rather the noise that went on--no doubt from the twigs

sweeping the glass--that kept me open-eyed.'

'I think that can hardly be, Sir Richard. Here--you see it from this

point. None of these nearest branches even can touch your casement unless

there were a gale, and there was none of that last night. They miss the

panes by a foot.'

'No, sir, true. What, then, will it be, I wonder, that scratched and

rustled so--ay, and covered the dust on my sill with lines and marks?'

At last they agreed that the rats must have come up through the ivy. That

was the Bishop's idea, and Sir Richard jumped at it.

So the day passed quietly, and night came, and the party dispersed to

their rooms, and wished Sir Richard a better night.

And now we are in his bedroom, with the light out and the Squire in bed.

The room is over the kitchen, and the night outside still and warm, so

the window stands open.

There is very little light about the bedstead, but there is a strange

39



movement there; it seems as if Sir Richard were moving his head rapidly

to and fro with only the slightest possible sound. And now you would

guess, so deceptive is the half-darkness, that he had several heads,

round and brownish, which move back and forward, even as low as his

chest. It is a horrible illusion. Is it nothing more? There! something

drops off the bed with a soft plump, like a kitten, and is out of thewindow in a flash; another--four--and after that there is quiet again.

_Thou shall seek me in the morning, and I shall not be._

As with Sir Matthew, so with Sir Richard--dead and black in his bed!

A pale and silent party of guests and servants gathered under the window

when the news was known. Italian poisoners, Popish emissaries, infected

air--all these and more guesses were hazarded, and the Bishop of Kilmore

looked at the tree, in the fork of whose lower boughs a white tom-cat was

crouching, looking down the hollow which years had gnawed in the trunk.

It was watching something inside the tree with great interest.

Suddenly it got up and craned over the hole. Then a bit of the edge on

which it stood gave way, and it went slithering in. Everyone looked up at

the noise of the fall.

It is known to most of us that a cat can cry; but few of us have heard, I

hope, such a yell as came out of the trunk of the great ash. Two or three

screams there were--the witnesses are not sure which--and then a slight

and muffled noise of some commotion or struggling was all that came. ButLady Mary Hervey fainted outright, and the housekeeper stopped her ears

and fled till she fell on the terrace.

The Bishop of Kilmore and Sir William Kentfield stayed. Yet even they

were daunted, though it was only at the cry of a cat; and Sir William

swallowed once or twice before he could say:

'There is something more than we know of in that tree, my lord. I am for

an instant search.'

And this was agreed upon. A ladder was brought, and one of the gardeners

went up, and, looking down the hollow, could detect nothing but a few dim

indications of something moving. They got a lantern, and let it down by a

rope.

'We must get at the bottom of this. My life upon it, my lord, but the

secret of these terrible deaths is there.'

Up went the gardener again with the lantern, and let it down the hole

cautiously. They saw the yellow light upon his face as he bent over, and

saw his face struck with an incredulous terror and loathing before hecried out in a dreadful voice and fell back from the ladder--where,

40



happily, he was caught by two of the men--letting the lantern fall inside

the tree.

He was in a dead faint, and it was some time before any word could be got

from him.

By then they had something else to look at. The lantern must have broken

at the bottom, and the light in it caught upon dry leaves and rubbish

that lay there for in a few minutes a dense smoke began to come up, and

then flame; and, to be short, the tree was in a blaze.

The bystanders made a ring at some yards' distance, and Sir William and

the Bishop sent men to get what weapons and tools they could; for,

clearly, whatever might be using the tree as its lair would be forced out

by the fire.

So it was. First, at the fork, they saw a round body covered with

fire--the size of a man's head--appear very suddenly, then seem to

collapse and fall back. This, five or six times; then a similar ball

leapt into the air and fell on the grass, where after a moment it lay

still. The Bishop went as near as he dared to it, and saw--what but the

remains of an enormous spider, veinous and seared! And, as the fire

burned lower down, more terrible bodies like this began to break out from

the trunk, and it was seen that these were covered with greyish hair.

All that day the ash burned, and until it fell to pieces the men stood

about it, and from time to time killed the brutes as they darted out. Atlast there was a long interval when none appeared, and they cautiously

closed in and examined the roots of the tree.

'They found,' says the Bishop of Kilmore, 'below it a rounded hollow

place in the earth, wherein were two or three bodies of these creatures

that had plainly been smothered by the smoke; and, what is to me more

curious, at the side of this den, against the wall, was crouching the

anatomy or skeleton of a human being, with the skin dried upon the bones,

having some remains of black hair, which was pronounced by those that

examined it to be undoubtedly the body of a woman, and clearly dead for a

period of fifty years.'

NUMBER 13

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 isFinderup, where Marsk Stig murdered King Erik Glipping on St Cecilia's

41



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 guide-book.

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 facade 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 theRigsarkiv 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.

42



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 onlyinteresting 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 Sagfoerer, 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 numbered13 in the hotel. He felt rather sorry he had not chosen it for his own.

43



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 thestreet-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 Joergen 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_ should be patronized and harboured by the

Bishop. The Bishop met these reproaches boldly; he protested his ownabhorrence 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 whatAnderson had to tell him about them. He looked forward with great

44



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 listof the town property is missing. Never mind. Perhaps I shall some day

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 apocket-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_

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 window-sill

45



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 window-sill 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

window-sill 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 putit 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.

46



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 Joergen 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 Franckenwas 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 nowthis many years--a fine upstanding man he was, and ready with his hands

47



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

48



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, butbefore 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. Sagfoerer 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.

49



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 _deshabille_ 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

50



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_,' 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.

51



'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 goin when it gives way.'

52



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 drewtheir 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 easte

rn 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,

53



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 beread, 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 Koenigsberg) 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.

COUNT MAGNUS

By what means the papers out of which I have made a connected story came

into my hands is the last point which the reader will learn from these

pages. But it is necessary to prefix to my extracts from them a statement

of the form in which I possess them.

They consist, then, partly of a series of collections for a book of

travels, such a volume as was a common product of the forties and

fifties. Horace Marryat's _Journal of a Residence in Jutland and the

Danish Isles_ is a fair specimen of the class to which I allude. These

books usually treated of some unknown district on the Continent. They

were illustrated with woodcuts or steel plates. They gave details of hotel accommodation and of means of communication, such as we now expect

54



to find in any well-regulated guide-book, and they dealt largely in

reported conversations with intelligent foreigners, racy innkeepers, and

garrulous peasants. In a word, they were chatty.

Begun with the idea of furnishing material for such a book, my papers as

they progressed assumed the character of a record of one single personalexperience, and this record was continued up to the very eve, almost, of

its termination.

The writer was a Mr Wraxall. For my knowledge of him I have to depend

entirely on the evidence his writings afford, and from these I deduce

that he was a man past middle age, possessed of some private means, and

very much alone in the world. He had, it seems, no settled abode in

England, but was a denizen of hotels and boarding-houses. It is probable

that he entertained the idea of settling down at some future time which

never came; and I think it also likely that the Pantechnicon fire in the

early seventies must have destroyed a great deal that would have thrown

light on his antecedents, for he refers once or twice to property of his

that was warehoused at that establishment.

It is further apparent that Mr Wraxall had published a book, and that it

treated of a holiday he had once taken in Brittany. More than this I

cannot say about his work, because a diligent search in bibliographical

works has convinced me that it must have appeared either anonymously or

under a pseudonym.

As to his character, it is not difficult to form some superficialopinion. He must have been an intelligent and cultivated man. It seems

that he was near being a Fellow of his college at Oxford--Brasenose, as I

judge from the Calendar. His besetting fault was pretty clearly that of

over-inquisitiveness, possibly a good fault in a traveller, certainly a

fault for which this traveller paid dearly enough in the end.

On what proved to be his last expedition, he was plotting another book.

Scandinavia, a region not widely known to Englishmen forty years ago, had

struck him as an interesting field. He must have alighted on some old

books of Swedish history or memoirs, and the idea had struck him that

there was room for a book descriptive of travel in Sweden, interspersed

with episodes from the history of some of the great Swedish families. He

procured letters of introduction, therefore, to some persons of quality

in Sweden, and set out thither in the early summer of 1863.

Of his travels in the North there is no need to speak, nor of his

residence of some weeks in Stockholm. I need only mention that some

_savant_ resident there put him on the track of an important collection

of family papers belonging to the proprietors of an ancient manor-house

in Vestergothland, and obtained for him permission to examine them.

The manor-house, or _herrgard_, in question is to be called Rabaeck

55



(pronounced something like Roebeck), though that is not its name. It is

one of the best buildings of its kind in all the country, and the picture

of it in Dahlenberg's _Suecia antiqua et moderna_, engraved in 1694,

shows it very much as the tourist may see it today. It was built soon

after 1600, and is, roughly speaking, very much like an English house of

that period in respect of material--red-brick with stone facings--andstyle. The man who built it was a scion of the great house of De la

Gardie, and his descendants possess it still. De la Gardie is the name by

which I will designate them when mention of them becomes necessary.

They received Mr Wraxall with great kindness and courtesy, and pressed

him to stay in the house as long as his researches lasted. But,

preferring to be independent, and mistrusting his powers of conversing in

Swedish, he settled himself at the village inn, which turned out quite

sufficiently comfortable, at any rate during the summer months. This

arrangement would entail a short walk daily to and from the manor-house

of something under a mile. The house itself stood in a park, and was

protected--we should say grown up--with large old timber. Near it you

found the walled garden, and then entered a close wood fringing one of

the small lakes with which the whole country is pitted. Then came the

wall of the demesne, and you climbed a steep knoll--a knob of rock

lightly covered with soil--and on the top of this stood the church,

fenced in with tall dark trees. It was a curious building to English

eyes. The nave and aisles were low, and filled with pews and galleries.

In the western gallery stood the handsome old organ, gaily painted, and

with silver pipes. The ceiling was flat, and had been adorned by a

seventeenth-century artist with a strange and hideous 'Last Judgement',full of lurid flames, falling cities, burning ships, crying souls, and

brown and smiling demons. Handsome brass coronae hung from the roof; the

pulpit was like a doll's-house covered with little painted wooden cherubs

and saints; a stand with three hour-glasses was hinged to the preacher's

desk. Such sights as these may be seen in many a church in Sweden now,

but what distinguished this one was an addition to the original building.

At the eastern end of the north aisle the builder of the manor-house had

erected a mausoleum for himself and his family. It was a largish

eight-sided building, lighted by a series of oval windows, and it had a

domed roof, topped by a kind of pumpkin-shaped object rising into a

spire, a form in which Swedish architects greatly delighted. The roof was

of copper externally, and was painted black, while the walls, in common

with those of the church, were staringly white. To this mausoleum there

was no access from the church. It had a portal and steps of its own on

the northern side.

Past the churchyard the path to the village goes, and not more than three

or four minutes bring you to the inn door.

On the first day of his stay at Rabaeck Mr Wraxall found the church door

open, and made these notes of the interior which I have epitomized. Intothe mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by looking

56



through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and

sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament, which made him

very anxious to spend some time in investigation.

The papers he had come to examine at the manor-house proved to be of just

the kind he wanted for his book. There were family correspondence, journals, and account-books of the earliest owners of the estate, very

carefully kept and clearly written, full of amusing and picturesque

detail. The first De la Gardie appeared in them as a strong and capable

man. Shortly after the building of the mansion there had been a period of

distress in the district, and the peasants had risen and attacked several

chateaux and done some damage. The owner of Rabaeck took a leading part in

supressing trouble, and there was reference to executions of ring-leaders

and severe punishments inflicted with no sparing hand.

The portrait of this Magnus de la Gardie was one of the best in the

house, and Mr Wraxall studied it with no little interest after his day's

work. He gives no detailed description of it, but I gather that the face

impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness; in

fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost phenomenally ugly man.

On this day Mr Wraxall took his supper with the family, and walked back

in the late but still bright evening.

'I must remember,' he writes, 'to ask the sexton if he can let me into

the mausoleum at the church. He evidently has access to it himself, for I

saw him tonight standing on the steps, and, as I thought, locking or unlocking the door.'

I find that early on the following day Mr Wraxall had some conversation

with his landlord. His setting it down at such length as he does

surprised me at first; but I soon realized that the papers I was reading

were, at least in their beginning, the materials for the book he was

meditating, and that it was to have been one of those quasi-journalistic

productions which admit of the introduction of an admixture of

conversational matter.

His object, he says, was to find out whether any traditions of Count

Magnus de la Gardie lingered on in the scenes of that gentleman's

activity, and whether the popular estimate of him were favourable or not.

He found that the Count was decidedly not a favourite. If his tenants

came late to their work on the days which they owed to him as Lord of the

Manor, they were set on the wooden horse, or flogged and branded in the

manor-house yard. One or two cases there were of men who had occupied

lands which encroached on the lord's domain, and whose houses had been

mysteriously burnt on a winter's night, with the whole family inside. But

what seemed to dwell on the innkeeper's mind most--for he returned to the

subject more than once--was that the Count had been on the BlackPilgrimage, and had brought something or someone back with him.

57



You will naturally inquire, as Mr Wraxall did, what the Black Pilgrimage

may have been. But your curiosity on the point must remain unsatisfied

for the time being, just as his did. The landlord was evidently unwilling

to give a full answer, or indeed any answer, on the point, and, being

called out for a moment, trotted out with obvious alacrity, only puttinghis head in at the door a few minutes afterwards to say that he was

called away to Skara, and should not be back till evening.

So Mr Wraxall had to go unsatisfied to his day's work at the manor-house.

The papers on which he was just then engaged soon put his thoughts into

another channel, for he had to occupy himself with glancing over the

correspondence between Sophia Albertina in Stockholm and her married

cousin Ulrica Leonora at Rabaeck in the years 1705-10. The letters were of

exceptional interest from the light they threw upon the culture of that

period in Sweden, as anyone can testify who has read the full edition of

them in the publications of the Swedish Historical Manuscripts

Commission.

In the afternoon he had done with these, and after returning the boxes in

which they were kept to their places on the shelf, he proceeded, very

naturally, to take down some of the volumes nearest to them, in order to

determine which of them had best be his principal subject of

investigation next day. The shelf he had hit upon was occupied mostly by

a collection of account-books in the writing of the first Count Magnus.

But one among them was not an account-book, but a book of alchemical and

other tracts in another sixteenth-century hand. Not being very familiar with alchemical literature, Mr Wraxall spends much space which he might

have spared in setting out the names and beginnings of the various

treatises: The book of the Phoenix, book of the Thirty Words, book of the

Toad, book of Miriam, Turba philosophorum, and so forth; and then he

announces with a good deal of circumstance his delight at finding, on a

leaf originally left blank near the middle of the book, some writing of

Count Magnus himself headed 'Liber nigrae peregrinationis'. It is true

that only a few lines were written, but there was quite enough to show

that the landlord had that morning been referring to a belief at least as

old as the time of Count Magnus, and probably shared by him. This is the

English of what was written:

'If any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a faithful

messenger and see the blood of his enemies, it is necessary that he

should first go into the city of Chorazin, and there salute the

prince....' Here there was an erasure of one word, not very thoroughly

done, so that Mr Wraxall felt pretty sure that he was right in reading it

as _aeris_ ('of the air'). But there was no more of the text copied, only

a line in Latin: _Quaere reliqua hujus materiei inter secretiora_. (See

the rest of this matter among the more private things.)

It could not be denied that this threw a rather lurid light upon the

58



tastes and beliefs of the Count; but to Mr Wraxall, separated from him by

nearly three centuries, the thought that he might have added to his

general forcefulness alchemy, and to alchemy something like magic, only

made him a more picturesque figure, and when, after a rather prolonged

contemplation of his picture in the hall, Mr Wraxall set out on his

homeward way, his mind was full of the thought of Count Magnus. He had noeyes for his surroundings, no perception of the evening scents of the

woods or the evening light on the lake; and when all of a sudden he

pulled up short, he was astonished to find himself already at the gate of

the churchyard, and within a few minutes of his dinner. His eyes fell on

the mausoleum.

'Ah,' he said, 'Count Magnus, there you are. I should dearly like to see

you.'

'Like many solitary men,' he writes, 'I have a habit of talking to myself

aloud; and, unlike some of the Greek and Latin particles, I do not expect

an answer. Certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case, there was

neither voice nor any that regarded: only the woman who, I suppose, was

cleaning up the church, dropped some metallic object on the floor, whose

clang startled me. Count Magnus, I think, sleeps sound enough.'

That same evening the landlord of the inn, who had heard Mr Wraxall say

that he wished to see the clerk or deacon (as he would be called in

Sweden) of the parish, introduced him to that official in the inn

parlour. A visit to the De la Gardie tomb-house was soon arranged for the

next day, and a little general conversation ensued.

Mr Wraxall, remembering that one function of Scandinavian deacons is to

teach candidates for Confirmation, thought he would refresh his own

memory on a Biblical point.

'Can you tell me,' he said, 'anything about Chorazin?'

The deacon seemed startled, but readily reminded him how that village had

once been denounced.

'To be sure,' said Mr Wraxall; 'it is, I suppose, quite a ruin now?'

'So I expect,' replied the deacon. 'I have heard some of our old priests

say that Antichrist is to be born there; and there are tales--'

'Ah! what tales are those?' Mr Wraxall put in.

'Tales, I was going to say, which I have forgotten,' said the deacon; and

soon after that he said good night.

The landlord was now alone, and at Mr Wraxall's mercy; and that inquirer was not inclined to spare him.

59



'Herr Nielsen,' he said, 'I have found out something about the Black

Pilgrimage. You may as well tell me what you know. What did the Count

bring back with him?'

Swedes are habitually slow, perhaps, in answering, or perhaps thelandlord was an exception. I am not sure; but Mr Wraxall notes that the

landlord spent at least one minute in looking at him before he said

anything at all. Then he came close up to his guest, and with a good deal

of effort he spoke:

'Mr Wraxall, I can tell you this one little tale, and no more--not any

more. You must not ask anything when I have done. In my grandfather's

time--that is, ninety-two years ago--there were two men who said: "The

Count is dead; we do not care for him. We will go tonight and have a free

hunt in his wood"--the long wood on the hill that you have seen behind

Rabaeck. Well, those that heard them say this, they said: "No, do not go;

we are sure you will meet with persons walking who should not be walking.

They should be resting, not walking." These men laughed. There were no

forestmen to keep the wood, because no one wished to live there. The

family were not here at the house. These men could do what they wished.

'Very well, they go to the wood that night. My grandfather was sitting

here in this room. It was the summer, and a light night. With the window

open, he could see out to the wood, and hear.

'So he sat there, and two or three men with him, and they listened. Atfirst they hear nothing at all; then they hear someone--you know how far

away it is--they hear someone scream, just as if the most inside part of

his soul was twisted out of him. All of them in the room caught hold of

each other, and they sat so for three-quarters of an hour. Then they hear

someone else, only about three hundred ells off. They hear him laugh out

loud: it was not one of those two men that laughed, and, indeed, they

have all of them said that it was not any man at all. After that they

hear a great door shut.

'Then, when it was just light with the sun, they all went to the priest.

They said to him:

'"Father, put on your gown and your ruff, and come to bury these men,

Anders Bjornsen and Hans Thorbjorn."

'You understand that they were sure these men were dead. So they went to

the wood--my grandfather never forgot this. He said they were all like so

many dead men themselves. The priest, too, he was in a white fear. He

said when they came to him:

'"I heard one cry in the night, and I heard one laugh afterwards. If Icannot forget that, I shall not be able to sleep again."

60



'So they went to the wood, and they found these men on the edge of the

wood. Hans Thorbjorn was standing with his back against a tree, and all

the time he was pushing with his hands--pushing something away from him

which was not there. So he was not dead. And they led him away, and took

him to the house at Nykjoping, and he died before the winter; but he wenton pushing with his hands. Also Anders Bjornsen was there; but he was

dead. And I tell you this about Anders Bjornsen, that he was once a

beautiful man, but now his face was not there, because the flesh of it

was sucked away off the bones. You understand that? My grandfather did

not forget that. And they laid him on the bier which they brought, and

they put a cloth over his head, and the priest walked before; and they

began to sing the psalm for the dead as well as they could. So, as they

were singing the end of the first verse, one fell down, who was carrying

the head of the bier, and the others looked back, and they saw that the

cloth had fallen off, and the eyes of Anders Bjornsen were looking up,

because there was nothing to close over them. And this they could not

bear. Therefore the priest laid the cloth upon him, and sent for a spade,

and they buried him in that place.'

The next day Mr Wraxall records that the deacon called for him soon after

his breakfast, and took him to the church and mausoleum. He noticed that

the key of the latter was hung on a nail just by the pulpit, and it

occurred to him that, as the church door seemed to be left unlocked as a

rule, it would not be difficult for him to pay a second and more private

visit to the monuments if there proved to be more of interest among them

than could be digested at first. The building, when he entered it, hefound not unimposing. The monuments, mostly large erections of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were dignified if luxuriant, and

the epitaphs and heraldry were copious. The central space of the domed

room was occupied by three copper sarcophagi, covered with

finely-engraved ornament. Two of them had, as is commonly the case in

Denmark and Sweden, a large metal crucifix on the lid. The third, that of

Count Magnus, as it appeared, had, instead of that, a full-length effigy

engraved upon it, and round the edge were several bands of similar

ornament representing various scenes. One was a battle, with cannon

belching out smoke, and walled towns, and troops of pikemen. Another

showed an execution. In a third, among trees, was a man running at full

speed, with flying hair and outstretched hands. After him followed a

strange form; it would be hard to say whether the artist had intended it

for a man, and was unable to give the requisite similitude, or whether it

was intentionally made as monstrous as it looked. In view of the skill

with which the rest of the drawing was done, Mr Wraxall felt inclined to

adopt the latter idea. The figure was unduly short, and was for the most

part muffled in a hooded garment which swept the ground. The only part of

the form which projected from that shelter was not shaped like any hand

or arm. Mr Wraxall compares it to the tentacle of a devil-fish, and

continues: 'On seeing this, I said to myself, "This, then, which isevidently an allegorical representation of some kind--a fiend pursuing a

61



hunted soul--may be the origin of the story of Count Magnus and his

mysterious companion. Let us see how the huntsman is pictured: doubtless

it will be a demon blowing his horn.'" But, as it turned out, there was

no such sensational figure, only the semblance of a cloaked man on a

hillock, who stood leaning on a stick, and watching the hunt with an

interest which the engraver had tried to express in his attitude.

Mr Wraxall noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks--three in

number--which secured the sarcophagus. One of them, he saw, was detached,

and lay on the pavement. And then, unwilling to delay the deacon longer

or to waste his own working-time, he made his way onward to the

manor-house.

'It is curious,' he notes, 'how, on retracing a familiar path, one's

thoughts engross one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects.

Tonight, for the second time, I had entirely failed to notice where I was

going (I had planned a private visit to the tomb-house to copy the

epitaphs), when I suddenly, as it were, awoke to consciousness, and found

myself (as before) turning in at the churchyard gate, and, I believe,

singing or chanting some such words as, "Are you awake, Count Magnus? Are

you asleep, Count Magnus?" and then something more which I have failed to

recollect. It seemed to me that I must have been behaving in this

nonsensical way for some time.'

He found the key of the mausoleum where he had expected to find it, and

copied the greater part of what he wanted; in fact, he stayed until the

light began to fail him.

'I must have been wrong,' he writes, 'in saying that one of the padlocks

of my Counts sarcophagus was unfastened; I see tonight that two are

loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the window-ledge,

after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining one is still

firm, and, though I take it to be a spring lock, I cannot guess how it is

opened. Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost afraid I should have

taken the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. It is strange, the interest

I feel in the personality of this, I fear, somewhat ferocious and grim

old noble.'

The day following was, as it turned out, the last of Mr Wraxall's stay at

Rabaeck. He received letters connected with certain investments which made

it desirable that he should return to England; his work among the papers

was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided, therefore, to

make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his notes, and be off.

These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time

than he had expected. The hospitable family insisted on his staying to

dine with them--they dined at three--and it was verging on half past six

before he was outside the iron gates of Rabaeck. He dwelt on every step of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself, now that he trod it

62



for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And when he

reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for many minutes,

gazing at the limitless prospect of woods near and distant, all dark

beneath a sky of liquid green. When at last he turned to go, the thought

struck him that surely he must bid farewell to Count Magnus as well as

the rest of the De la Gardies. The church was but twenty yards away, andhe knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. It was not long before he

was standing over the great copper coffin, and, as usual, talking to

himself aloud: 'You may have been a bit of a rascal in your time,

Magnus,' he was saying, 'but for all that I should like to see you, or,

rather--'

'Just at that instant,' he says, 'I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily

enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash.

It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the

sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and--Heaven is my witness that I am

writing only the bare truth--before I had raised myself there was a sound

of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards.

I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life stay for

one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time than I can

write--almost as quickly as I could have said--the words; and what

frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key in the lock. As I sit

here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty

minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I cannot

tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something more

than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight I

am not able to remember. What is this that I have done?'

* * * * *

Poor Mr Wraxall! He set out on his journey to England on the next day, as

he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I gather

from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man. One of the

several small note-books that have come to me with his papers gives, not

a key to, but a kind of inkling of, his experiences. Much of his journey

was made by canal-boat, and I find not less than six painful attempts to

enumerate and describe his fellow-passengers. The entries are of this

kind:

24. Pastor of village in Skane. Usual black coat and soft black hat.

25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm going to Trollhaettan. Black

cloak, brown hat.

26. Man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned.

This entry is lined out, and a note added: 'Perhaps identical with No.

13. Have not yet seen his face.' On referring to No. 13, I find that heis a Roman priest in a cassock.

63



The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twenty-eight people

appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak

and broad hat, and another a 'short figure in dark cloak and hood'. On

the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers appear

at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and the shortfigure is certainly absent.

On reaching England, it appears that Mr Wraxall landed at Harwich, and

that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person

or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to

regard as his pursuers. Accordingly he took a vehicle--it was a closed

fly--not trusting the railway and drove across country to the village of

Belchamp St Paul. It was about nine o'clock on a moonlight August night

when he neared the place. He was sitting forward, and looking out of the

window at the fields and thickets--there was little else to be

seen--racing past him. Suddenly he came to a cross-road. At the corner

two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the

taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood. He had no time to see their

faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the horse

shied violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr Wraxall sank back into

his seat in something like desperation. He had seen them before.

Arrived at Belchamp St Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent

furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived,

comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this

day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full,but the substance of them is clear enough. He is expecting a visit from

his pursuers--how or when he knows not--and his constant cry is 'What has

he done?' and 'Is there no hope?' Doctors, he knows, would call him mad,

policemen would laugh at him. The parson is away. What can he do but lock

his door and cry to God?

People still remember last year at Belchamp St Paul how a strange

gentleman came one evening in August years back; and how the next morning

but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest; and the jury that

viewed the body fainted, seven of 'em did, and none of 'em wouldn't speak

to what they see, and the verdict was visitation of God; and how the

people as kep' the 'ouse moved out that same week, and went away from

that part. But they do not, I think, know that any glimmer of light has

ever been thrown, or could be thrown, on the mystery. It so happened that

last year the little house came into my hands as part of a legacy. It had

stood empty since 1863, and there seemed no prospect of letting it; so I

had it pulled down, and the papers of which I have given you an abstract

were found in a forgotten cupboard under the window in the best bedroom.

64



'OH, WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD'

'I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Full Term is over,

Professor,' said a person not in the story to the Professor of

Ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast in

the hospitable hall of St James's College.

The Professor was young, neat, and precise in speech.

'Yes,' he said; 'my friends have been making me take up golf this term,

and I mean to go to the East Coast--in point of fact to Burnstow--(I dare

say you know it) for a week or ten days, to improve my game. I hope to

get off tomorrow.'

'Oh, Parkins,' said his neighbour on the other side, 'if you are going to

Burnstow, I wish you would look at the site of the Templars' preceptory,

and let me know if you think it would be any good to have a dig there in

the summer.'

It was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said

this, but, since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need to

give his entitlements.

'Certainly,' said Parkins, the Professor: 'if you will describe to me

whereabouts the site is, I will do my best to give you an idea of the lie

of the land when I get back; or I could write to you about it, if you

would tell me where you are likely to be.'

'Don't trouble to do that, thanks. It's only that I'm thinking of taking

my family in that direction in the Long, and it occurred to me that, as

very few of the English preceptories have ever been properly planned, I

might have an opportunity of doing something useful on off-days.'

The Professor rather sniffed at the idea that planning out a preceptory

could be described as useful. His neighbour continued:

'The site--I doubt if there is anything showing above ground--must be

down quite close to the beach now. The sea has encroached tremendously,

as you know, all along that bit of coast. I should think, from the map,

that it must be about three-quarters of a mile from the Globe Inn, at the

north end of the town. Where are you going to stay?'

'Well, _at_ the Globe Inn, as a matter of fact,' said Parkins; 'I have

engaged a room there. I couldn't get in anywhere else; most of the

lodging-houses are shut up in winter, it seems; and, as it is, they tell

me that the only room of any size I can have is really a double-bedded

one, and that they haven't a corner in which to store the other bed, and

so on. But I must have a fairly large room, for I am taking some booksdown, and mean to do a bit of work; and though I don't quite fancy having

65



an empty bed--not to speak of two--in what I may call for the time being

my study, I suppose I can manage to rough it for the short time I shall

be there.'

'Do you call having an extra bed in your room roughing it, Parkins?' said

a bluff person opposite. 'Look here, I shall come down and occupy it for a bit; it'll be company for you.'

The Professor quivered, but managed to laugh in a courteous manner.

'By all means, Rogers; there's nothing I should like better. But I'm

afraid you would find it rather dull; you don't play golf, do you?'

'No, thank Heaven!' said rude Mr Rogers.

'Well, you see, when I'm not writing I shall most likely be out on the

links, and that, as I say, would be rather dull for you, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, I don't know! There's certain to be somebody I know in the place;

but, of course, if you don't want me, speak the word, Parkins; I shan't

be offended. Truth, as you always tell us, is never offensive.'

Parkins was, indeed, scrupulously polite and strictly truthful. It is to

be feared that Mr Rogers sometimes practised upon his knowledge of these

characteristics. In Parkins's breast there was a conflict now raging,

which for a moment or two did not allow him to answer. That interval

being over, he said:

'Well, if you want the exact truth, Rogers, I was considering whether the

room I speak of would really be large enough to accommodate us both

comfortably; and also whether (mind, I shouldn't have said this if you

hadn't pressed me) you would not constitute something in the nature of a

hindrance to my work.'

Rogers laughed loudly.

'Well done, Parkins!' he said. 'It's all right. I promise not to

interrupt your work; don't you disturb yourself about that. No, I won't

come if you don't want me; but I thought I should do so nicely to keep

the ghosts off.' Here he might have been seen to wink and to nudge his

next neighbour. Parkins might also have been seen to become pink. 'I beg

pardon, Parkins,' Rogers continued; 'I oughtn't to have said that. I

forgot you didn't like levity on these topics.'

'Well,' Parkins said, 'as you have mentioned the matter, I freely own

that I do _not_ like careless talk about what you call ghosts. A man in

my position,' he went on, raising his voice a little, 'cannot, I find, be

too careful about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on suchsubjects. As you know, Rogers, or as you ought to know; for I think I

66



have never concealed my views--'

'No, you certainly have not, old man,' put in Rogers _sotto voce._

'--I hold that any semblance, any appearance of concession to the view

that such things might exist is equivalent to a renunciation of all thatI hold most sacred. But I'm afraid I have not succeeded in securing your

attention.'

'Your _undivided_ attention, was what Dr Blimber actually _said_,'[4]

Rogers interrupted, with every appearance of an earnest desire for

accuracy. 'But I beg your pardon, Parkins: I'm stopping you.'

[4] Mr Rogers was wrong, _vide Dombey and Son_, chapter xii.

'No, not at all,' said Parkins. 'I don't remember Blimber; perhaps he was

before my time. But I needn't go on. I'm sure you know what I mean.'

'Yes, yes,' said Rogers, rather hastily--'just so. We'll go into it fully

at Burnstow, or somewhere.'

In repeating the above dialogue I have tried to give the impression which

it made on me, that Parkins was something of an old woman--rather

henlike, perhaps, in his little ways; totally destitute, alas! of the

sense of humour, but at the same time dauntless and sincere in his

convictions, and a man deserving of the greatest respect. Whether or not

the reader has gathered so much, that was the character which Parkinshad.

* * * * *

On the following day Parkins did, as he had hoped, succeed in getting

away from his college, and in arriving at Burnstow. He was made welcome

at the Globe Inn, was safely installed in the large double-bedded room of

which we have heard, and was able before retiring to rest to arrange his

materials for work in apple-pie order upon a commodious table which

occupied the outer end of the room, and was surrounded on three sides by

windows looking out seaward; that is to say, the central window looked

straight out to sea, and those on the left and right commanded prospects

along the shore to the north and south respectively. On the south you saw

the village of Burnstow. On the north no houses were to be seen, but only

the beach and the low cliff backing it. Immediately in front was a

strip--not considerable--of rough grass, dotted with old anchors,

capstans, and so forth; then a broad path; then the beach. Whatever may

have been the original distance between the Globe Inn and the sea, not

more than sixty yards now separated them.

The rest of the population of the inn was, of course, a golfing one, andincluded few elements that call for a special description. The most

67



conspicuous figure was, perhaps, that of an _ancien militaire_, secretary

of a London club, and possessed of a voice of incredible strength, and of

views of a pronouncedly Protestant type. These were apt to find utterance

after his attendance upon the ministrations of the Vicar, an estimable

man with inclinations towards a picturesque ritual, which he gallantly

kept down as far as he could out of deference to East Anglian tradition.

Professor Parkins, one of whose principal characteristics was pluck,

spent the greater part of the day following his arrival at Burnstow in

what he had called improving his game, in company with this Colonel

Wilson: and during the afternoon--whether the process of improvement were

to blame or not, I am not sure--the Colonel's demeanour assumed a

colouring so lurid that even Parkins jibbed at the thought of walking

home with him from the links. He determined, after a short and furtive

look at that bristling moustache and those incarnadined features, that it

would be wiser to allow the influences of tea and tobacco to do what they

could with the Colonel before the dinner-hour should render a meeting

inevitable.

'I might walk home tonight along the beach,' he reflected--'yes, and take

a look--there will be light enough for that--at the ruins of which Disney

was talking. I don't exactly know where they are, by the way; but I

expect I can hardly help stumbling on them.'

This he accomplished, I may say, in the most literal sense, for in

picking his way from the links to the shingle beach his foot caught,

partly in a gorse-root and partly in a biggish stone, and over he went.When he got up and surveyed his surroundings, he found himself in a patch

of somewhat broken ground covered with small depressions and mounds.

These latter, when he came to examine them, proved to be simply masses of

flints embedded in mortar and grown over with turf. He must, he quite

rightly concluded, be on the site of the preceptory he had promised to

look at. It seemed not unlikely to reward the spade of the explorer;

enough of the foundations was probably left at no great depth to throw a

good deal of light on the general plan. He remembered vaguely that the

Templars, to whom this site had belonged, were in the habit of building

round churches, and he thought a particular series of the humps or mounds

near him did appear to be arranged in something of a circular form. Few

people can resist the temptation to try a little amateur research in a

department quite outside their own, if only for the satisfaction of

showing how successful they would have been had they only taken it up

seriously. Our Professor, however, if he felt something of this mean

desire, was also truly anxious to oblige Mr Disney. So he paced with care

the circular area he had noticed, and wrote down its rough dimensions in

his pocket-book. Then he proceeded to examine an oblong eminence which

lay east of the centre of the circle, and seemed to his thinking likely

to be the base of a platform or altar. At one end of it, the northern, a

patch of the turf was gone--removed by some boy or other creature _feraenaturae_. It might, he thought, be as well to probe the soil here for

68



evidences of masonry, and he took out his knife and began scraping away

the earth. And now followed another little discovery: a portion of soil

fell inward as he scraped, and disclosed a small cavity. He lighted one

match after another to help him to see of what nature the hole was, but

the wind was too strong for them all. By tapping and scratching the sides

with his knife, however, he was able to make out that it must be anartificial hole in masonry. It was rectangular, and the sides, top, and

bottom, if not actually plastered, were smooth and regular. Of course it

was empty. No! As he withdrew the knife he heard a metallic clink, and

when he introduced his hand it met with a cylindrical object lying on the

floor of the hole. Naturally enough, he picked it up, and when he brought

it into the light, now fast fading, he could see that it, too, was of

man's making--a metal tube about four inches long, and evidently of some

considerable age.

By the time Parkins had made sure that there was nothing else in this odd

receptacle, it was too late and too dark for him to think of undertaking

any further search. What he had done had proved so unexpectedly

interesting that he determined to sacrifice a little more of the daylight

on the morrow to archaeology. The object which he now had safe in his

pocket was bound to be of some slight value at least, he felt sure.

Bleak and solemn was the view on which he took a last look before

starting homeward. A faint yellow light in the west showed the links, on

which a few figures moving towards the club-house were still visible, the

squat martello tower, the lights of Aldsey village, the pale ribbon of

sands intersected at intervals by black wooden groynings, the dim andmurmuring sea. The wind was bitter from the north, but was at his back

when he set out for the Globe. He quickly rattled and clashed through the

shingle and gained the sand, upon which, but for the groynings which had

to be got over every few yards, the going was both good and quiet. One

last look behind, to measure the distance he had made since leaving the

ruined Templars' church, showed him a prospect of company on his walk, in

the shape of a rather indistinct personage, who seemed to be making great

efforts to catch up with him, but made little, if any, progress. I mean

that there was an appearance of running about his movements, but that the

distance between him and Parkins did not seem materially to lessen. So,

at least, Parkins thought, and decided that he almost certainly did not

know him, and that it would be absurd to wait until he came up. For all

that, company, he began to think, would really be very welcome on that

lonely shore, if only you could choose your companion. In his

unenlightened days he had read of meetings in such places which even now

would hardly bear thinking of. He went on thinking of them, however,

until he reached home, and particularly of one which catches most

people's fancy at some time of their childhood.' Now I saw in my dream

that Christian had gone but a very little way when he saw a foul fiend

coming over the field to meet him.' 'What should I do now,' he thought,

'if I looked back and caught sight of a black figure sharply definedagainst the yellow sky, and saw that it had horns and wings? I wonder

69



whether I should stand or run for it. Luckily, the gentleman behind is

not of that kind, and he seems to be about as far off now as when I saw

him first. Well, at this rate, he won't get his dinner as soon as I

shall; and, dear me! it's within a quarter of an hour of the time now. I

must run!'

Parkins had, in fact, very little time for dressing. When he met the

Colonel at dinner, Peace--or as much of her as that gentleman could

manage--reigned once more in the military bosom; nor was she put to

flight in the hours of bridge that followed dinner, for Parkins was a

more than respectable player. When, therefore, he retired towards twelve

o'clock, he felt that he had spent his evening in quite a satisfactory

way, and that, even for so long as a fortnight or three weeks, life at

the Globe would be supportable under similar conditions--'especially,'

thought he, 'if I go on improving my game.'

As he went along the passages he met the boots of the Globe, who stopped

and said:

'Beg your pardon, sir, but as I was abrushing your coat just now there

was something fell out of the pocket. I put it on your chest of drawers,

sir, in your room, sir--a piece of a pipe or somethink of that, sir.

Thank you, sir. You'll find it on your chest of drawers, sir--yes, sir.

Good night, sir.'

The speech served to remind Parkins of his little discovery of that

afternoon. It was with some considerable curiosity that he turned it over by the light of his candles. It was of bronze, he now saw, and was shaped

very much after the manner of the modern dog-whistle; in fact it

was--yes, certainly it was--actually no more nor less than a whistle. He

put it to his lips, but it was quite full of a fine, caked-up sand or

earth, which would not yield to knocking, but must be loosened with a

knife. Tidy as ever in his habits, Parkins cleared out the earth on to a

piece of paper, and took the latter to the window to empty it out. The

night was clear and bright, as he saw when he had opened the casement,

and he stopped for an instant to look at the sea and note a belated

wanderer stationed on the shore in front of the inn. Then he shut the

window, a little surprised at the late hours people kept at Burnstow, and

took his whistle to the light again. Why, surely there were marks on it,

and not merely marks, but letters! A very little rubbing rendered the

deeply-cut inscription quite legible, but the Professor had to confess,

after some earnest thought, that the meaning of it was as obscure to him

as the writing on the wall to Belshazzar. There were legends both on the

front and on the back of the whistle. The one read thus:

FLA

FUR BIS

FLE

70



The other:

QUIS EST ISTE QUI VENIT

'I ought to be able to make it out,' he thought; 'but I suppose I am a

little rusty in my Latin. When I come to think of it, I don't believe Ieven know the word for a whistle. The long one does seem simple enough.

It ought to mean: "Who is this who is coming?" Well, the best way to find

out is evidently to whistle for him.'

He blew tentatively and stopped suddenly, startled and yet pleased at the

note he had elicited. It had a quality of infinite distance in it, and,

soft as it was, he somehow felt it must be audible for miles round. It

was a sound, too, that seemed to have the power (which many scents

possess) of forming pictures in the brain. He saw quite clearly for a

moment a vision of a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh wind

blowing, and in the midst a lonely figure--how employed, he could not

tell. Perhaps he would have seen more had not the picture been broken by

the sudden surge of a gust of wind against his casement, so sudden that

it made him look up, just in time to see the white glint of a seabird's

wing somewhere outside the dark panes.

The sound of the whistle had so fascinated him that he could not help

trying it once more, this time more boldly. The note was little, if at

all, louder than before, and repetition broke the illusion--no picture

followed, as he had half hoped it might. "But what is this? Goodness!

what force the wind can get up in a few minutes! What a tremendous gust!There! I knew that window-fastening was no use! Ah! I thought so--both

candles out. It is enough to tear the room to pieces."

The first thing was to get the window shut. While you might count twenty

Parkins was struggling with the small casement, and felt almost as if he

were pushing back a sturdy burglar, so strong was the pressure. It

slackened all at once, and the window banged to and latched itself. Now

to relight the candles and see what damage, if any, had been done. No,

nothing seemed amiss; no glass even was broken in the casement. But the

noise had evidently roused at least one member of the household: the

Colonel was to be heard stumping in his stockinged feet on the floor

above, and growling. Quickly as it had risen, the wind did not fall at

once. On it went, moaning and rushing past the house, at times rising to

a cry so desolate that, as Parkins disinterestedly said, it might have

made fanciful people feel quite uncomfortable; even the unimaginative, he

thought after a quarter of an hour, might be happier without it.

Whether it was the wind, or the excitement of golf, or of the researches

in the preceptory that kept Parkins awake, he was not sure. Awake he

remained, in any case, long enough to fancy (as I am afraid I often do

myself under such conditions) that he was the victim of all manner of fatal disorders: he would lie counting the beats of his heart, convinced

71



that it was going to stop work every moment, and would entertain grave

suspicions of his lungs, brain, liver, etc.--suspicions which he was sure

would be dispelled by the return of daylight, but which until then

refused to be put aside. He found a little vicarious comfort in the idea

that someone else was in the same boat. A near neighbour (in the darkness

it was not easy to tell his direction) was tossing and rustling in hisbed, too.

The next stage was that Parkins shut his eyes and determined to give

sleep every chance. Here again over-excitement asserted itself in another

form--that of making pictures. _Experto crede_, pictures do come to the

closed eyes of one trying to sleep, and are often so little to his taste

that he must open his eyes and disperse them.

Parkins's experience on this occasion was a very distressing one. He

found that the picture which presented itself to him was continuous. When

he opened his eyes, of course, it went; but when he shut them once more

it framed itself afresh, and acted itself out again, neither quicker nor

slower than before. What he saw was this:

A long stretch of shore--shingle edged by sand, and intersected at short

intervals with black groynes running down to the water--a scene, in fact,

so like that of his afternoon's walk that, in the absence of any

landmark, it could not be distinguished therefrom. The light was obscure,

conveying an impression of gathering storm, late winter evening, and

slight cold rain. On this bleak stage at first no actor was visible.

Then, in the distance, a bobbing black object appeared; a moment more,and it was a man running, jumping, clambering over the groynes, and every

few seconds looking eagerly back. The nearer he came the more obvious it

was that he was not only anxious, but even terribly frightened, though

his face was not to be distinguished. He was, moreover, almost at the end

of his strength. On he came; each successive obstacle seemed to cause him

more difficulty than the last. 'Will he get over this next one?' thought

Parkins; 'it seems a little higher than the others.' Yes; half climbing,

half throwing himself, he did get over, and fell all in a heap on the

other side (the side nearest to the spectator). There, as if really

unable to get up again, he remained crouching under the groyne, looking

up in an attitude of painful anxiety.

So far no cause whatever for the fear of the runner had been shown; but

now there began to be seen, far up the shore, a little flicker of

something light-coloured moving to and fro with great swiftness and

irregularity. Rapidly growing larger, it, too, declared itself as a

figure in pale, fluttering draperies, ill-defined. There was something

about its motion which made Parkins very unwilling to see it at close

quarters. It would stop, raise arms, bow itself towards the sand, then

run stooping across the beach to the water-edge and back again; and then,

rising upright, once more continue its course forward at a speed that wasstartling and terrifying. The moment came when the pursuer was hovering

72



about from left to right only a few yards beyond the groyne where the

runner lay in hiding. After two or three ineffectual castings hither and

thither it came to a stop, stood upright, with arms raised high, and then

darted straight forward towards the groyne.

It was at this point that Parkins always failed in his resolution to keephis eyes shut. With many misgivings as to incipient failure of eyesight,

overworked brain, excessive smoking, and so on, he finally resigned

himself to light his candle, get out a book, and pass the night waking,

rather than be tormented by this persistent panorama, which he saw

clearly enough could only be a morbid reflection of his walk and his

thoughts on that very day.

The scraping of match on box and the glare of light must have startled

some creatures of the night--rats or what not--which he heard scurry

across the floor from the side of his bed with much rustling. Dear, dear!

the match is out! Fool that it is! But the second one burnt better, and a

candle and book were duly procured, over which Parkins pored till sleep

of a wholesome kind came upon him, and that in no long space. For about

the first time in his orderly and prudent life he forgot to blow out the

candle, and when he was called next morning at eight there was still a

flicker in the socket and a sad mess of guttered grease on the top of the

little table.

After breakfast he was in his room, putting the finishing touches to his

golfing costume--fortune had again allotted the Colonel to him for a

partner--when one of the maids came in.

'Oh, if you please,' she said, 'would you like any extra blankets on your

bed, sir?'

'Ah! thank you,' said Parkins. 'Yes, I think I should like one. It seems

likely to turn rather colder.'

In a very short time the maid was back with the blanket.

'Which bed should I put it on, sir?' she asked.

'What? Why, that one--the one I slept in last night,' he said, pointing

to it.

'Oh yes! I beg your pardon, sir, but you seemed to have tried both of

'em; leastways, we had to make 'em both up this morning.'

'Really? How very absurd!' said Parkins. 'I certainly never touched the

other, except to lay some things on it. Did it actually seem to have been

slept in?'

'Oh yes, sir!' said the maid. 'Why, all the things was crumpled and

73



throwed about all ways, if you'll excuse me, sir--quite as if anyone

'adn't passed but a very poor night, sir.'

'Dear me,' said Parkins. 'Well, I may have disordered it more than I

thought when I unpacked my things. I'm very sorry to have given you the

extra trouble, I'm sure. I expect a friend of mine soon, by the way--agentleman from Cambridge--to come and occupy it for a night or two. That

will be all right, I suppose, won't it?'

'Oh yes, to be sure, sir. Thank you, sir. It's no trouble, I'm sure,'

said the maid, and departed to giggle with her colleagues.

Parkins set forth, with a stern determination to improve his game.

I am glad to be able to report that he succeeded so far in this

enterprise that the Colonel, who had been rather repining at the prospect

of a second day's play in his company, became quite chatty as the morning

advanced; and his voice boomed out over the flats, as certain also of our

own minor poets have said, 'like some great bourdon in a minster tower'.

'Extraordinary wind, that, we had last night,' he said. 'In my old home

we should have said someone had been whistling for it.'

'Should you, indeed!' said Perkins. 'Is there a superstition of that kind

still current in your part of the country?'

'I don't know about superstition,' said the Colonel. 'They believe in itall over Denmark and Norway, as well as on the Yorkshire coast; and my

experience is, mind you, that there's generally something at the bottom

of what these country-folk hold to, and have held to for generations. But

it's your drive' (or whatever it might have been: the golfing reader will

have to imagine appropriate digressions at the proper intervals).

When conversation was resumed, Parkins said, with a slight hesitancy:

'A propos of what you were saying just now, Colonel, I think I ought to

tell you that my own views on such subjects are very strong. I am, in

fact, a convinced disbeliever in what is called the "supernatural".'

'What!' said the Colonel,'do you mean to tell me you don't believe in

second-sight, or ghosts, or anything of that kind?'

'In nothing whatever of that kind,' returned Parkins firmly.

'Well,' said the Colonel, 'but it appears to me at that rate, sir, that

you must be little better than a Sadducee.'

Parkins was on the point of answering that, in his opinion, the Sadduceeswere the most sensible persons he had ever read of in the Old Testament;

74



but feeling some doubt as to whether much mention of them was to be found

in that work, he preferred to laugh the accusation off.

'Perhaps I am,' he said; 'but--Here, give me my cleek, boy!--Excuse me

one moment, Colonel.' A short interval. 'Now, as to whistling for the

wind, let me give you my theory about it. The laws which govern winds arereally not at all perfectly known--to fisherfolk and such, of course, not

known at all. A man or woman of eccentric habits, perhaps, or a stranger,

is seen repeatedly on the beach at some unusual hour, and is heard

whistling. Soon afterwards a violent wind rises; a man who could read the

sky perfectly or who possessed a barometer could have foretold that it

would. The simple people of a fishing-village have no barometers, and

only a few rough rules for prophesying weather. What more natural than

that the eccentric personage I postulated should be regarded as having

raised the wind, or that he or she should clutch eagerly at the

reputation of being able to do so? Now, take last night's wind: as it

happens, I myself was whistling. I blew a whistle twice, and the wind

seemed to come absolutely in answer to my call. If anyone had seen me--'

The audience had been a little restive under this harangue, and Parkins

had, I fear, fallen somewhat into the tone of a lecturer; but at the last

sentence the Colonel stopped.

'Whistling, were you?' he said. 'And what sort of whistle did you use?

Play this stroke first.' Interval.

'About that whistle you were asking, Colonel. It's rather a curious one.I have it in my--No; I see I've left it in my room. As a matter of fact,

I found it yesterday.'

And then Parkins narrated the manner of his discovery of the whistle,

upon hearing which the Colonel grunted, and opined that, in Parkins's

place, he should himself be careful about using a thing that had belonged

to a set of Papists, of whom, speaking generally, it might be affirmed

that you never knew what they might not have been up to. From this topic

he diverged to the enormities of the Vicar, who had given notice on the

previous Sunday that Friday would be the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle,

and that there would be service at eleven o'clock in the church. This and

other similar proceedings constituted in the Colonel's view a strong

presumption that the Vicar was a concealed Papist, if not a Jesuit; and

Parkins, who could not very readily follow the Colonel in this region,

did not disagree with him. In fact, they got on so well together in the

morning that there was not talk on either side of their separating after

lunch.

Both continued to play well during the afternoon, or at least, well

enough to make them forget everything else until the light began to fail

them. Not until then did Parkins remember that he had meant to do somemore investigating at the preceptory; but it was of no great importance,

75



he reflected. One day was as good as another; he might as well go home

with the Colonel.

As they turned the corner of the house, the Colonel was almost knocked

down by a boy who rushed into him at the very top of his speed, and then,

instead of running away, remained hanging on to him and panting. Thefirst words of the warrior were naturally those of reproof and

objurgation, but he very quickly discerned that the boy was almost

speechless with fright. Inquiries were useless at first. When the boy got

his breath he began to howl, and still clung to the Colonel's legs. He

was at last detached, but continued to howl.

'What in the world is the matter with you? What have you been up to? What

have you seen?' said the two men.

'Ow, I seen it wive at me out of the winder,' wailed the boy, 'and I

don't like it.'

'What window?' said the irritated Colonel. 'Come pull yourself together,

my boy.'

'The front winder it was, at the 'otel,' said the boy.

At this point Parkins was in favour of sending the boy home, but the

Colonel refused; he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he said; it was

most dangerous to give a boy such a fright as this one had had, and if it

turned out that people had been playing jokes, they should suffer for itin some way. And by a series of questions he made out this story: The boy

had been playing about on the grass in front of the Globe with some

others; then they had gone home to their teas, and he was just going,

when he happened to look up at the front winder and see it a-wiving at

him. _It_ seemed to be a figure of some sort, in white as far as he

knew--couldn't see its face; but it wived at him, and it warn't a right

thing--not to say not a right person. Was there a light in the room? No,

he didn't think to look if there was a light. Which was the window? Was

it the top one or the second one? The seckind one it was--the big winder

what got two little uns at the sides.

'Very well, my boy,' said the Colonel, after a few more questions. 'You

run away home now. I expect it was some person trying to give you a

start. Another time, like a brave English boy, you just throw a

stone--well, no, not that exactly, but you go and speak to the waiter, or

to Mr Simpson, the landlord, and--yes--and say that I advised you to do

so.'

The boy's face expressed some of the doubt he felt as to the likelihood

of Mr Simpson's lending a favourable ear to his complaint, but the

Colonel did not appear to perceive this, and went on:

76



'And here's a sixpence--no, I see it's a shilling--and you be off home,

and don't think any more about it.'

The youth hurried off with agitated thanks, and the Colonel and Parkins

went round to the front of the Globe and reconnoitred. There was only one

window answering to the description they had been hearing.

'Well, that's curious,' said Parkins; 'it's evidently my window the lad

was talking about. Will you come up for a moment, Colonel Wilson? We

ought to be able to see if anyone has been taking liberties in my room.'

They were soon in the passage, and Parkins mad

as if to open the door.

Then he stopped and felt in his pockets.

'This is more serious than I thought,' was his next remark. 'I remember now that before I started this morning I locked the door. It is locked

now, and, what is more, here is the key.' And he held it up. 'Now,' he

went on, 'if the servants are in the habit of going into one's room

during the day when one is away, I can only say that--well, that I don't

approve of it at all.' Conscious of a somewhat weak climax, he busied

himself in opening the door (which was indeed locked) and in lighting

candles. 'No,' he said, 'nothing seems disturbed.'

'Except your bed,' put in the Colonel.

'Excuse me, that isn't my bed,' said Parkins. 'I don't use that one. But

it does look as if someone had been playing tricks with it.'

It certainly did: the clothes were bundled up and twisted together in a

most tortuous confusion. Parkins pondered.

'That must be it,' he said at last. 'I disordered the clothes last night

in unpacking, and they haven't made it since. Perhaps they came in to

make it, and that boy saw them through the window; and then they were

called away and locked the door after them. Yes, I think that must be

it.'

'W

ell, ring and ask,' said the Colonel, and this appealed to Parkins as

practical.

The maid appeared, and, to make a long story short, deposed that she had

made the bed in the morning when the gentleman was in the room, and

hadn't been there since. No, she hadn't no other key. Mr Simpson, he kep'

the keys; he'd be able to tell the gentleman if anyone had been up.

This was a puzzle. Investigation showed that nothing of value had been

77



taken, and Parkins remembered the disposition of the small objects on

tables and so forth well enough to be pretty sure that no pranks had been

played with them. Mr and Mrs Simpson furthermore agreed that neither of

them had given the duplicate key of the room to any person whatever

during the day. Nor could Parkins, fair-minded man as he was, detect

anything in the demeanour of master, mistress, or maid that indicatedguilt. He was much more inclined to think that the boy had been imposing

on the Colonel.

The latter was unwontedly silent and pensive at dinner and throughout the

evening. When he bade goodnight to Parkins, he murmured in a gruff

undertone:

'You know where I am if you want me during the night.'

'Why, yes, thank you, Colonel Wilson, I think I do; but there isn't much

prospect of my disturbing you, I hope. By the way,' he added, 'did I show

you that old whistle I spoke of? I think not. Well, here it is.'

The Colonel turned it over gingerly in the light of the candle.

'Can you make anything of the inscription?' asked Parkins, as he took it

back.

'No, not in this light. What do you mean to do with it?'

'Oh, well, when I get back to Cambridge I shall submit it to some of thearchaeologists there, and see what they think of it; and very likely, if

they consider it worth having, I may present it to one of the museums.'

'M!' said the Colonel. 'Well, you may be right. All I know is that, if it

were mine, I should chuck it straight into the sea. It's no use talking,

I'm well aware, but I expect that with you it's a case of live and learn.

I hope so, I'm sure, and I wish you a good night.'

He turned away, leaving Parkins in act to speak at the bottom of the

stair, and soon each was in his own bedroom.

By some unfortunate accident, there were neither blinds nor curtains to

the windows of the Professor's room. The previous night he had thought

little of this, but tonight there seemed every prospect of a bright moon

rising to shine directly on his bed, and probably wake him later on. When

he noticed this he was a good deal annoyed, but, with an ingenuity which

I can only envy, he succeeded in rigging up, with the help of a

railway-rug, some safety-pins, and a stick and umbrella, a screen which,

if it only held together, would completely keep the moonlight off his

bed. And shortly afterwards he was comfortably in that bed. When he had

read a somewhat solid work long enough to produce a decided wish tosleep, he cast a drowsy glance round the room, blew out the candle, and

78



fell back upon the pillow.

He must have slept soundly for an hour or more, when a sudden clatter

shook him up in a most unwelcome manner. In a moment he realized what had

happened: his carefully-constructed screen had given way, and a very

bright frosty moon was shining directly on his face. This was highlyannoying. Could he possibly get up and reconstruct the screen? or could

he manage to sleep if he did not?

For some minutes he lay and pondered over all the possibilities; then he

turned over sharply, and with his eyes open lay breathlessly listening.

There had been a movement, he was sure, in the empty bed on the opposite

side of the room. Tomorrow he would have it moved, for there must be rats

or something playing about in it. It was quiet now. No! the commotion

began again. There was a rustling and shaking: surely more than any rat

could cause.

I can figure to myself something of the Professor's bewilderment and

horror, for I have in a dream thirty years back seen the same thing

happen; but the reader will hardly, perhaps, imagine how dreadful it was

to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an empty

bed. He was out of his own bed in one bound, and made a dash towards the

window, where lay his only weapon, the stick with which he had propped

his screen. This was, as it turned out, the worst thing he could have

done, because the personage in the empty bed, with a sudden smooth

motion, slipped from the bed and took up a position, with outspread arms,

between the two beds, and in front of the door. Parkins watched it in ahorrid perplexity. Somehow, the idea of getting past it and escaping

through the door was intolerable to him; he could not have borne--he

didn't know why--to touch it; and as for its touching him, he would

sooner dash himself through the window than have that happen. It stood

for the moment in a band of dark shadow, and he had not seen what its

face was like. Now it began to move, in a stooping posture, and all at

once the spectator realized, with some horror and some relief, that it

must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it with its muffled arms in a

groping and random fashion. Turning half away from him, it became

suddenly conscious of the bed he had just left, and darted towards it,

and bent and felt over the pillows in a way which made Parkins shudder as

he had never in his life thought it possible. In a very few moments it

seemed to know that the bed was empty, and then, moving forward into the

area of light and facing the window, it showed for the first time what

manner of thing it was.

Parkins, who very much dislikes being questioned about it, did once

describe something of it in my hearing, and I gathered that what he

chiefly remembers about it is a horrible, an intensely horrible, face _of

crumpled linen._ What expression he read upon it he could not or would

not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to maddening him is certain.

79



But he was not at leisure to watch it for long. With formidable quickness

it moved into the middle of the room, and, as it groped and waved, one

corner of its draperies swept across Parkins's face. He could not, though

he knew how perilous a sound was--he could not keep back a cry of

disgust, and this gave the searcher an instant clue. It leapt towards him

upon the instant, and the next moment he was half-way through the windowbackwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch of his voice, and

the linen face was thrust close into his own. At this, almost the last

possible second, deliverance came, as you will have guessed: the Colonel

burst the door open, and was just in time to see the dreadful group at

the window. When he reached the figures only one was left. Parkins sank

forward into the room in a faint, and before him on the floor lay a

tumbled heap of bed-clothes.

Colonel Wilson asked no questions, but busied himself in keeping everyone

else out of the room and in getting Parkins back to his bed; and himself,

wrapped in a rug, occupied the other bed, for the rest of the night.

Early on the next day Rogers arrived, more welcome than he would have

been a day before, and the three of them held a very long consultation in

the Professor's room. At the end of it the Colonel left the hotel door

carrying a small object between his finger and thumb, which he cast as

far into the sea as a very brawny arm could send it. Later on the smoke

of a burning ascended from the back premises of the Globe.

Exactly what explanation was patched up for the staff and visitors at the

hotel I must confess I do not recollect. The Professor was somehow

cleared of the ready suspicion of delirium tremens, and the hotel of thereputation of a troubled house.

There is not much question as to what would have happened to Parkins if

the Colonel had not intervened when he did. He would either have fallen

out of the window or else lost his wits. But it is not so evident what

more the creature that came in answer to the whistle could have done than

frighten. There seemed to be absolutely nothing material about it save

the bedclothes of which it had made itself a body. The Colonel, who

remembered a not very dissimilar occurrence in India, was of the opinion

that if Parkins had closed with it it could really have done very little,

and that its one power was that of frightening. The whole thing, he said,

served to confirm his opinion of the Church of Rome.

There is really nothing more to tell, but, as you may imagine, the

Professor's views on certain points are less clear cut than they used to

be. His nerves, too, have suffered: he cannot even now see a surplice

hanging on a door quite unmoved, and the spectacle of a scarecrow in a

field late on a winter afternoon has cost him more than one sleepless

night.

80



THE TREASURE OF ABBOT THOMAS

I

_Verum usque in praesentem diem multa garriunt inter se Canonici deabscondito quodam istius Abbatis Thomae thesauro, quem saepe,

quanquam ahduc incassum, quaesiverunt Steinfeldenses. Ipsum enim

Thomam adhuc florida in aetate existentem ingentem auri massam circa

monasterium defodisse perhibent; de quo multoties interrogatus ubi

esset, cum risu respondere solitus erat: 'Job, Johannes, et Zacharias

vel vobis vel posteris indicabunt'; idemque aliquando adiicere se

inventuris minime invisurum. Inter alia huius Abbatis opera, hoc

memoria praecipue dignum indico quod fenestram magnam in orientali

parte alae australis in ecclesia sua imaginibus optime in vitro

depictis impleverit: id quod et ipsius effigies et insignia ibidem

posita demonstrant. Domum quoque Abbatialem fere totam restauravit:

puteo in atrio ipsius effosso et lapidibus marmoreis pulchre caelatis

exornato. Decessit autem, morte aliquantulum subitanea perculsus,

aetatis suae anno lxxii(do), incarnationis vero Dominicae mdxxix(o)._

'I suppose I shall have to translate this,' said the antiquary to

himself, as he finished copying the above lines from that rather rare and

exceedingly diffuse book, the _Sertum Steinfeldense Norbertinum.[5]_

'Well, it may as well be done first as last,' and accordingly the

following rendering was very quickly produced:

Up to the present day there is much gossip among the Canons about a

certain hidden treasure of this Abbot Thomas, for which those of

Steinfeld have often made search, though hitherto in vain. The story

is that Thomas, while yet in the vigour of life, concealed a very

large quantity of gold somewhere in the monastery. He was often asked

where it was, and always answered, with a laugh: 'Job, John, and

Zechariah will tell either you or your successors.' He sometimes

added that he should feel no grudge against those who might find it.

Among other works carried out by this Abbot I may specially mention

his filling the great window at the east end of the south aisle of

the church with figures admirably painted on glass, as his effigy and

arms in the window attest. He also restored almost the whole of the

Abbot's lodging, and dug a well in the court of it, which he adorned

with beautiful carvings in marble. He died rather suddenly in the

seventy-second year of his age, A.D. 1529.

[5] An account of the Premonstratensian abbey of Steinfeld, in the

Eiffel, with lives of the Abbots, published at Cologne in 1712 by

Christian Albert Erhard, a resident in the district. The epithet

_Norbertinum_ is due to the fact that St Norbert was founder of the

Premonstratensian Order.

81



The object which the antiquary had before him at the moment was that of

tracing the whereabouts of the painted windows of the Abbey Church at

Steinfeld. Shortly after the Revolution, a very large quantity of painted

glass made its way from the dissolved abbeys of Germany and Belgium to

this country, and may now be seen adorning various of our parish

churches, cathedrals, and private chapels. Steinfeld Abbey was among themost considerable of these involuntary contributors to our artistic

possession (I am quoting the somewhat ponderous preamble of the book

which the antiquary wrote), and the greater part of the glass from that

institution can be identified without much difficulty by the help, either

of the numerous inscriptions in which the place is mentioned, or of the

subjects of the windows, in which several well-defined cycles or

narratives were represented.

The passage with which I began my story had set the antiquary on the

track of another identification. In a private chapel--no matter where--he

had seen three large figures, each occupying a whole light in a window,

and evidently the work of one artist. Their style made it plain that that

artist had been a German of the sixteenth century; but hitherto the more

exact localizing of them had been a puzzle. They represented--will you be

surprised to hear it?--JOB PATRIARCHA, JOHANNES EVANGELISTA, ZACHARIAS

PROPHETA, and each of them held a book or scroll, inscribed with a

sentence from his writings. These, as a matter of course, the antiquary

had noted, and had been struck by the curious way in which they differed

from any text of the Vulgate that he had been able to examine. Thus the

scroll in Job's hand was inscribed: _Auro est locus in quo absconditur_

(for _conflatur_)[6]; on the book of John was: _Habent in vestimentissuis scripturam quam nemo novit_[7] (for in _vestimento scriptum_, the

following words being taken from another verse); and Zacharias had:

_Super lapidem unum septem oculi sunt_[8] (which alone of the three

presents an unaltered text).

[6] There is a place for gold where it is hidden.

[7] They have on their raiment a writing which no man knoweth.

[8] Upon one stone are seven eyes.

A sad perplexity it had been to our investigator to think why these three

personages should have been placed together in one window. There was no

bond of connexion between them, either historic, symbolic, or doctrinal,

and he could only suppose that they must have formed part of a very large

series of Prophets and Apostles, which might have filled, say, all the

clerestory windows of some capacious church. But the passage from the

_Sertum_ had altered the situation by showing that the names of the

actual personages represented in the glass now in Lord D----'s chapel had

been constantly on the lips of Abbot Thomas von Eschenhausen of

Steinfeld, and that this Abbot had put up a painted window, probablyabout the year 1520, in the south aisle of his abbey church. It was no

82



very wild conjecture that the three figures might have formed part of

Abbot Thomas's offering; it was one which, moreover, could probably be

confirmed or set aside by another careful examination of the glass. And,

as Mr. Somerton was a man of leisure, he set out on pilgrimage to the

private chapel with very little delay. His conjecture was confirmed to

the full. Not only did the style and technique of the glass suitperfectly with the date and place required, but in another window of the

chapel he found some glass, known to have been bought along with the

figures, which contained the arms of Abbot Thomas von Eschenhausen.

At intervals during his researches Mr. Somerton had been haunted by the

recollection of the gossip about the hidden treasure, and, as he thought

the matter over, it became more and more obvious to him that if the Abbot

meant anything by the enigmatical answer which he gave to his

questioners, he must have meant that the secret was to be found somewhere

in the window he had placed in the abbey church. It was undeniable,

furthermore, that the first of the curiously-selected texts on the

scrolls in the window might be taken to have a reference to hidden

treasure.

Every feature, therefore, or mark which could possibly assist in

elucidating the riddle which, he felt sure, the Abbot had set to

posterity he noted with scrupulous care, and, returning to his Berkshire

manor-house, consumed many a pint of the midnight oil over his tracings

and sketches. After two or three weeks, a day came when Mr Somerton

announced to his man that he must pack his own and his master's things

for a short journey abroad, whither for the moment we will not followhim.

II

Mr Gregory, the Rector of Parsbury, had strolled out before breakfast, it

being a fine autumn morning, as far as the gate of his carriage-drive,

with intent to meet the postman and sniff the cool air. Nor was he

disappointed of either purpose. Before he had had time to answer morethan ten or eleven of the miscellaneous questions propounded to him in

the lightness of their hearts by his young offspring, who had accompanied

him, the postman was seen approaching; and among the morning's budget was

one letter bearing a foreign postmark and stamp (which became at once the

objects of an eager competition among the youthful Gregorys), and

addressed in an uneducated, but plainly an English hand.

When the Rector opened it, and turned to the signature, he realized that

it came from the confidential valet of his friend and squire, Mr.

Somerton. Thus it ran:

Honoured Sir,

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Has I am in a great anxiety about Master I write at is Wish to beg

you Sir if you could be so good as Step over. Master Has add a Nastey

Shock and keeps His Bedd. I never Have known Him like this but No

wonder and Nothing will serve but you Sir. Master says would I

mintion the Short Way Here is Drive to Cobblince and take a Trap.Hopeing I Have maid all Plain, but am much Confused in Myself what

with Anxiatey and Weakfulness at Night. If I might be so Bold Sir it

will be a Pleasure to see a Honnest Brish Face among all These Forig

ones.

I am Sir

Your obed't Serv't

William Brown.

P.S.--The Village for Town I will not Turm It is name Steenfeld.

The reader must be left to picture to himself in detail the surprise,

confusion, and hurry of preparation into which the receipt of such a

letter would be likely to plunge a quiet Berkshire parsonage in the year

of grace 1859. It is enough for me to say that a train to town was caught

in the course of the day, and that Mr Gregory was able to secure a cabin

in the Antwerp boat and a place in the Coblenz train. Nor was it

difficult to manage the transit from that centre to Steinfeld.

I labour under a grave disadvantage as narrator of this story in that I

have never visited Steinfeld myself, and that neither of the principal

actors in the episode (from whom I derive my information) was able to

give me anything but a vague and rather dismal idea of its appearance. I

gather that it is a small place, with a large church despoiled of its

ancient fittings; a number of rather ruinous great buildings, mostly of

the seventeenth century, surround this church; for the abbey, in common

with most of those on the Continent, was rebuilt in a luxurious fashion

by its inhabitants at that period. It has not seemed to me worth while to

lavish money on a visit to the place, for though it is probably far more

attractive than either Mr Somerton or Mr Gregory thought it, there is

evidently little, if anything, of first-rate interest to be seen--except,

perhaps, one thing, which I should not care to see.

The inn where the English gentleman and his servant were lodged is, or

was, the only 'possible' one in the village. Mr Gregory was taken to it

at once by his driver, and found Mr Brown waiting at the door. Mr Brown,

a model when in his Berkshire home of the impassive whiskered race who

are known as confidential valets, was now egregiously out of his element,

in a light tweed suit, anxious, almost irritable, and plainly anything

but master of the situation. His relief at the sight of the 'honestBritish face' of his Rector was unmeasured, but words to describe it were

84



denied him. He could only say:

'Well, I ham pleased, I'm sure, sir, to see you. And so I'm sure, sir,

will master.'

'How is your master, Brown?' Mr Gregory eagerly put in.

'I think he's better, sir, thank you; but he's had a dreadful time of it.

I 'ope he's gettin' some sleep now, but--'

'What has been the matter--I couldn't make out from your letter? Was it

an accident of any kind?'

'Well, sir, I 'ardly know whether I'd better speak about it. Master was

very partickler he should be the one to tell you. But there's no bones

broke--that's one thing I'm sure we ought to be thankful--'

'What does the doctor say?' asked Mr Gregory.

They were by this time outside Mr Somerton's bedroom door, and speaking

in low tones. Mr Gregory, who happened to be in front, was feeling for

the handle, and chanced to run his fingers over the panels. Before Brown

could answer, there was a terrible cry from within the room.

'In God's name, who is that?' were the first words they heard. 'Brown, is

it?'

'Yes, sir--me, sir, and Mr Gregory,' Brown hastened to answer, and there

was an audible groan of relief in reply.

They entered the room, which was darkened against the afternoon sun, and

Mr Gregory saw, with a shock of pity, how drawn, how damp with drops of

fear, was the usually calm face of his friend, who, sitting up in the

curtained bed, stretched out a shaking hand to welcome him.

'Better for seeing you, my dear Gregory,' was the reply to the Rector's

first question, and it was palpably true.

After five minutes of conversation Mr Somerton was more his own man,

Brown afterwards reported, than he had been for days. He was able to eat

a more than respectable dinner, and talked confidently of being fit to

stand a journey to Coblenz within twenty-four hours.

'But there's one thing,' he said, with a return of agitation which Mr

Gregory did not like to see, 'which I must beg you to do for me, my dear

Gregory. Don't,' he went on, laying his hand on Gregory's to forestall

any interruption--'don't ask me what it is, or why I want it done. I'm

not up to explaining it yet; it would throw me back--undo all the goodyou have done me by coming. The only word I will say about it is that you

85



run no risk whatever by doing it, and that Brown can and will show you

tomorrow what it is. It's merely to put back--to keep--something--No; I

can't speak of it yet. Do you mind calling Brown?'

'Well, Somerton,' said Mr Gregory, as he crossed the room to the door. 'I

won't ask for any explanations till you see fit to give them. And if thisbit of business is as easy as you represent it to be, I will very gladly

undertake it for you the first thing in the morning.'

'Ah, I was sure you would, my dear Gregory; I was certain I could rely on

you. I shall owe you more thanks than I can tell. Now, here is Brown.

Brown, one word with you.'

'Shall I go?' interjected Mr Gregory.

'Not at all. Dear me, no. Brown, the first thing tomorrow morning--(you

don't mind early hours, I know, Gregory)--you must take the Rector

to--_there_, you know' (a nod from Brown, who looked grave and anxious),

'and he and you will put that back. You needn't be in the least alarmed;

it's _perfectly_ safe in the daytime. You know what I mean. It lies on

the step, you know, where--where we put it.' (Brown swallowed dryly once

or twice, and, failing to speak, bowed.) 'And--yes, that's all. Only this

one other word, my dear Gregory. If you _can_ manage to keep from

questioning Brown about this matter, I shall be still more bound to you.

Tomorrow evening, at latest, if all goes well, I shall be able, I

believe, to tell you the whole story from start to finish. And now I'll

wish you good night. Brown will be with me--he sleeps here--and if I wereyou, I should lock my door. Yes, be particular to do that. They--they

like it, the people here, and it's better. Good night, good night.'

They parted upon this, and if Mr Gregory woke once or twice in the small

hours and fancied he heard a fumbling about the lower part of his locked

door, it was, perhaps, no more than what a quiet man, suddenly plunged

into a strange bed and the heart of a mystery, might reasonably expect.

Certainly he thought, to the end of his days, that he had heard such a

sound twice or three times between midnight and dawn.

He was up with the sun, and out in company with Brown soon after.

Perplexing as was the service he had been asked to perform for Mr

Somerton, it was not a difficult or an alarming one, and within half an

hour from his leaving the inn it was over. What it was I shall not as yet

divulge.

Later in the morning Mr Somerton, now almost himself again, was able to

make a start from Steinfeld; and that same evening, whether at Coblenz or

at some intermediate stage on the journey I am not certain, he settled

down to the promised explanation. Brown was present, but how much of the

matter was ever really made plain to his comprehension he would never say, and I am unable to conjecture.

86



III

This was Mr Somerton's story:

'You know roughly, both of you, that this expedition of mine was

undertaken with the object of tracing something in connexion with some

old painted glass in Lord D----'s private chapel. Well, the

starting-point of the whole matter lies in this passage from an old

printed book, to which I will ask your attention.'

And at this point Mr Somerton went carefully over some ground with which

we are already familiar.

'On my second visit to the chapel,' he went on, 'my purpose was to take

every note I could of figures, lettering, diamond-scratchings on the

glass, and even apparently accidental markings. The first point which I

tackled was that of the inscribed scrolls. I could not doubt that the

first of these, that of Job--"There is a place for the gold where it is

hidden"--with its intentional alteration, must refer to the treasure; so

I applied myself with some confidence to the next, that of St John--"They

have on their vestures a writing which no man knoweth." The natural

question will have occurred to you: Was there an inscription on the robes

of the figures? I could see none; each of the three had a broad black

border to his mantle, which made a conspicuous and rather ugly feature in

the window. I was nonplussed, I will own, and, but for a curious bit of luck, I think I should have left the search where the Canons of Steinfeld

had left it before me. But it so happened that there was a good deal of

dust on the surface of the glass, and Lord D----, happening to come in,

noticed my blackened hands, and kindly insisted on sending for a Turk's

head broom to clean down the window. There must, I suppose, have been a

rough piece in the broom; anyhow, as it passed over the border of one of

the mantles, I noticed that it left a long scratch, and that some yellow

stain instantly showed up. I asked the man to stop his work for a moment,

and ran up the ladder to examine the place. The yellow stain was there,

sure enough, and what had come away was a thick black pigment, which had

evidently been laid on with the brush after the glass had been burnt, and

could therefore be easily scraped off without doing any harm. I scraped,

accordingly, and you will hardly believe--no, I do you an injustice; you

will have guessed already--that I found under this black pigment two or

three clearly-formed capital letters in yellow stain on a clear ground.

Of course, I could hardly contain my delight.

'I told Lord D---- that I had detected an inscription which I thought

might be very interesting, and begged to be allowed to uncover the whole

of it. He made no difficulty about it whatever, told me to do exactly as

I pleased, and then, having an engagement, was obliged--rather to myrelief, I must say--to leave me. I set to work at once, and found the

87



task a fairly easy one. The pigment, disintegrated, of course, by time,

came off almost at a touch, and I don't think that it took me a couple of

hours, all told, to clean the whole of the black borders in all three

lights. Each of the figures had, as the inscription said, "a writing on

their vestures which nobody knew".

'This discovery, of course, made it absolutely certain to my mind that I

was on the right track. And, now, what was the inscription? While I was

cleaning the glass I almost took pains not to read the lettering, saving

up the treat until I had got the whole thing clear. And when that was

done, my dear Gregory, I assure you I could almost have cried from sheer

disappointment. What I read was only the most hopeless jumble of letters

that was ever shaken up in a hat. Here it is:

_Job_. DREVICIOPEDMOOMSMVIVLISLCAV

IBASBATAOVT

_St John_. RDIIEAMRLESIPVSPODSEEIRSETTA

AESGIAVNNR

_Zechariah_. FTEEAILNQDPVAIVMTLEEATTOHIOO

NVMCAAT.H.Q.E.

'Blank as I felt and must have looked for the first few minutes, my

disappointment didn't last long. I realized almost at once that I was

dealing with a cipher or cryptogram; and I reflected that it was likely

to be of a pretty simple kind, considering its early date. So I copiedthe letters with the most anxious care. Another little point, I may tell

you, turned up in the process which confirmed my belief in the cipher.

After copying the letters on Job's robe I counted them, to make sure that

I had them right. There were thirty-eight; and, just as I finished going

through them, my eye fell on a scratching made with a sharp point on the

edge of the border. It was simply the number xxxviii in Roman numerals.

To cut the matter short, there was a similar note, as I may call it, in

each of the other lights; and that made it plain to me that the

glass-painter had had very strict orders from Abbot Thomas about the

inscription and had taken pains to get it correct.

'Well, after that discovery you may imagine how minutely I went over the

whole surface of the glass in search of further light. Of course, I did

not neglect the inscription on the scroll of Zechariah--"Upon one stone

are seven eyes," but I very quickly concluded that this must refer to

some mark on a stone which could only be found _in situ_, where the

treasure was concealed. To be short, I made all possible notes and

sketches and tracings, and then came back to Parsbury to work out the

cipher at leisure. Oh, the agonies I went through! I thought myself very

clever at first, for I made sure that the key would be found in some of

the old books on secret writing. The _Steganographia_ of JoachimTrithemius, who was an earlier contemporary of Abbot Thomas, seemed

88



particularly promising; so I got that and Selenius's _Cryptographia_ and

Bacon's _de Augmentis Scientiarum_ and some more. But I could hit upon

nothing. Then I tried the principle of the "most frequent letter", taking

first Latin and then German as a basis. That didn't help, either; whether

it ought to have done so, I am not clear. And then I came back to the

window itself, and read over my notes, hoping almost against hope thatthe Abbot might himself have somewhere supplied the key I wanted. I could

make nothing out of the colour or pattern of the robes. There were no

landscape backgrounds with subsidiary objects; there was nothing in the

canopies. The only resource possible seemed to be in the attitudes of the

figures. "Job," I read: "scroll in left hand, forefinger of right hand

extended upwards. John: holds inscribed book in left hand; with right

hand blesses, with two fingers. Zechariah: scroll in left hand; right

hand extended upwards, as Job, but with three fingers pointing up." In

other words, I reflected, Job has one finger extended, John has _two_,

Zechariah has _three_. May not there be a numerical key concealed in

that? My dear Gregory,' said Mr Somerton, laying his hand on his friend's

knee, 'that _was_ the key. I didn't get it to fit at first, but after two

or three trials I saw what was meant. After the first letter of the

inscription you skip _one_ letter, after the next you skip _two_, and

after that skip _three_. Now look at the result I got. I've underlined

the letters which form words:

[D]R[E]VI[C]IOP[E]D[M]OO[M]SMV[I]V[L]IS[L]CAV

[I]B[A]SB[A]TAO[V]T

[R]DI[I]EAM[R]L[E]SI[P]VSP[O]D[S]EE[I]RSE[T]T[A]

AE[S]GIA[V]N[N]RF[T]EEA[I]L[N]QD[P]VAI[V]M[T]LE[E]ATT[O]H[I]OO

[N]VMC[A]A[T].H.Q.E.

'Do you see it? "_Decem millia auri reposita sunt in puteo in at_ ..."

(Ten thousand [pieces] of gold are laid up in a well in ...), followed by

an incomplete word beginning _at_. So far so good. I tried the same plan

with the remaining letters; but it wouldn't work, and I fancied that

perhaps the placing of dots after the three last letters might indicate

some difference of procedure. Then I thought to myself, "Wasn't there

some allusion to a well in the account of Abbot Thomas in that book the

'_Sertum_'?" Yes, there was; he built a _puteus in atrio_; (a well in the

court). There, of course, was my word _atrio_. The next step was to copy

out the remaining letters of the inscription, omitting those I had

already used. That gave what you will see on this slip:

RVIIOPDOOSMVVISCAVBSBTAOTDIE

AMLSIVSPDEERSETAEGIANRFEEALQD

VAIMLEATTHOOVMCA.H.Q.E.

'Now, I knew what the three first letters I wanted were--namely,

_rio_--to complete the word _atrio_; and, as you will see, these are allto be found in the first five letters. I was a little confused at first

89



by the occurrence of two _i_'s, but very soon I saw that every alternate

letter must be taken in the remainder of the inscription. You can work it

out for yourself; the result, continuing where the first "round" left

off, thus:

_rio domus abbatialis de Steinfeld a me, Thoma, qui posui custodemsuper ea. Gare a qui la touche_.

'So the whole secret was out:

"Ten thousand pieces of gold are laid up in the well in the court of

the Abbot's house of Steinfeld by me, Thomas, who have set a guardian

over them. _Gare a qui la louche_."

'The last words, I ought to say, are a device which Abbot Thomas had

adopted. I found it with his arms in another piece of glass at Lord

D----'s, and he drafted it bodily into his cipher, though it doesn't

quite fit in point of grammar.

'Well, what would any human being have been tempted to do, my dear

Gregory, in my place? Could he have helped setting off, as I did, to

Steinfeld, and tracing the secret literally to the fountain-head? I don't

believe he could. Anyhow, I couldn't, and, as I needn't tell you, I found

myself at Steinfeld as soon as the resources of civilization could put me

there, and installed myself in the inn you saw. I must tell you that I

was not altogether free from forebodings--on one hand of disappointment,

on the other of danger. There was always the possibility that AbbotThomas's well might have been wholly obliterated, or else that someone,

ignorant of cryptograms, and guided only by luck, might have stumbled on

the treasure before me. And then'--there was a very perceptible shaking

of the voice here--'I was not entirely easy, I need not mind confessing,

as to the meaning of the words about the guardian of the treasure. But,

if you don't mind, I'll say no more about that until--until it becomes

necessary.

'At the first possible opportunity Brown and I began exploring the place.

I had naturally represented myself as being interested in the remains of

the abbey, and we could not avoid paying a visit to the church, impatient

as I was to be elsewhere. Still, it did interest me to see the windows

where the glass had been, and especially that at the east end of the

south aisle. In the tracery lights of that I was startled to see some

fragments and coats-of-arms remaining--Abbot Thomas's shield was there,

and a small figure with a scroll inscribed _Oculos habent, et non

videbunt_ (They have eyes, and shall not see), which, I take it, was a

hit of the Abbot at his Canons.

'But, of course, the principal object was to find the Abbot's house.

There is no prescribed place for this, so far as I know, in the plan of amonastery; you can't predict of it, as you can of the chapter-house, that

90



it will be on the eastern side of the cloister, or, as of the dormitory,

that it will communicate with a transept of the church. I felt that if I

asked many questions I might awaken lingering memories of the treasure,

and I thought it best to try first to discover it for myself. It was not

a very long or difficult search. That three-sided court south-east of the

church, with deserted piles of building round it, and grass-grownpavement, which you saw this morning, was the place. And glad enough I

was to see that it was put to no use, and was neither very far from our

inn nor overlooked by any inhabited building; there were only orchards

and paddocks on the slopes east of the church. I can tell you that fine

stone glowed wonderfully in the rather watery yellow sunset that we had

on the Tuesday afternoon.

'Next, what about the well? There was not much doubt about that, as you

can testify. It is really a very remarkable thing. That curb is, I think,

of Italian marble, and the carving I thought must be Italian also. There

were reliefs, you will perhaps remember, of Eliezer and Rebekah, and of

Jacob opening the well for Rachel, and similar subjects; but, by way of

disarming suspicion, I suppose, the Abbot had carefully abstained from

any of his cynical and allusive inscriptions.

'I examined the whole structure with the keenest interest, of course--a

square well-head with an opening in one side; an arch over it, with a

wheel for the rope to pass over, evidently in very good condition still,

for it had been used within sixty years, or perhaps even later though not

quite recently. Then there was the question of depth and access to the

interior. I suppose the depth was about sixty to seventy feet; and as tothe other point, it really seemed as if the Abbot had wished to lead

searchers up to the very door of his treasure-house, for, as you tested

for yourself, there were big blocks of stone bonded into the masonry, and

leading down in a regular staircase round and round the inside of the

well.

'It seemed almost too good to be true. I wondered if there was a trap--if

the stones were so contrived as to tip over when a weight was placed on

them; but I tried a good many with my own weight and with my stick, and

all seemed, and actually were, perfectly firm. Of course, I resolved that

Brown and I would make an experiment that very night.

'I was well prepared. Knowing the sort of place I should have to explore,

I had brought a sufficiency of good rope and bands of webbing to surround

my body, and cross-bars to hold to, as well as lanterns and candles and

crowbars, all of which would go into a single carpet-bag and excite no

suspicion. I satisfied myself that my rope would be long enough, and that

the wheel for the bucket was in good working order, and then we went home

to dinner.

'I had a little cautious conversation with the landlord, and made outthat he would not be overmuch surprised if I went out for a stroll with

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my man about nine o'clock, to make (Heaven forgive me!) a sketch of the

abbey by moonlight. I asked no questions about the well, and am not

likely to do so now. I fancy I know as much about it as anyone in

Steinfeld: at least'--with a strong shudder--'I don't want to know any

more.

'Now we come to the crisis, and, though I hate to think of it, I feel

sure, Gregory, that it will be better for me in all ways to recall it

just as it happened. We started, Brown and I, at about nine with our bag,

and attracted no attention; for we managed to slip out at the hinder end

of the inn-yard into an alley which brought us quite to the edge of the

village. In five minutes we were at the well, and for some little time we

sat on the edge of the well-head to make sure that no one was stirring or

spying on us. All we heard was some horses cropping grass out of sight

farther down the eastern slope. We were perfectly unobserved, and had

plenty of light from the gorgeous full moon to allow us to get the rope

properly fitted over the wheel. Then I secured the band round my body

beneath the arms. We attached the end of the rope very securely to a ring

in the stonework. Brown took the lighted lantern and followed me; I had a

crowbar. And so we began to descend cautiously, feeling every step before

we set foot on it, and scanning the walls in search of any marked stone.

'Half aloud I counted the steps as we went down, and we got as far as the

thirty-eighth before I noted anything at all irregular in the surface of

the masonry. Even here there was no mark, and I began to feel very blank,

and to wonder if the Abbot's cryptogram could possibly be an elaborate

hoax. At the forty-ninth step the staircase ceased. It was with a verysinking heart that I began retracing my steps, and when I was back on the

thirty-eighth--Brown, with the lantern, being a step or two above me--I

scrutinized the little bit of irregularity in the stonework with all my

might; but there was no vestige of a mark.

'Then it struck me that the texture of the surface looked just a little

smoother than the rest, or, at least, in some way different. It might

possibly be cement and not stone. I gave it a good blow with my iron bar.

There was a decidedly hollow sound, though that might be the result of

our being in a well. But there was more. A great flake of cement dropped

on to my feet, and I saw marks on the stone underneath. I had tracked the

Abbot down, my dear Gregory; even now I think of it with a certain pride.

It took but a very few more taps to clear the whole of the cement away,

and I saw a slab of stone about two feet square, upon which was engraven

a cross. Disappointment again, but only for a moment. It was you, Brown,

who reassured me by a casual remark. You said, if I remember right:

"'It's a funny cross: looks like a lot of eyes."

'I snatched the lantern out of your hand, and saw with inexpressible

pleasure that the cross was composed of seven eyes, four in a verticalline, three horizontal. The last of the scrolls in the window was

92



explained in the way I had anticipated. Here was my "stone with the seven

eyes". So far the Abbot's data had been exact, and as I thought of this,

the anxiety about the "guardian" returned upon me with increased force.

Still I wasn't going to retreat now.

'Without giving myself time to think, I knocked away the cement all roundthe marked stone, and then gave it a prise on the right side with my

crowbar. It moved at once, and I saw that it was but a thin light slab,

such as I could easily lift out myself, and that it stopped the entrance

to a cavity. I did lift it out unbroken, and set it on the step, for it

might be very important to us to be able to replace it. Then I waited for

several minutes on the step just above. I don't know why, but I think to

see if any dreadful thing would rush out. Nothing happened. Next I lit a

candle, and very cautiously I placed it inside the cavity, with some idea

of seeing whether there were foul air, and of getting a glimpse of what

was inside. There _was_ some foulness of air which nearly extinguished

the flame, but in no long time it burned quite steadily. The hole went

some little way back, and also on the right and left of the entrance, and

I could see some rounded light-coloured objects within which might be

bags. There was no use in waiting. I faced the cavity, and looked in.

There was nothing immediately in the front of the hole. I put my arm in

and felt to the right, very gingerly....

'Just give me a glass of cognac, Brown. I'll go on in a moment,

Gregory....

'Well, I felt to the right, and my fingers touched something curved, thatfelt--yes--more or less like leather; dampish it was, and evidently part

of a heavy, full thing. There was nothing, I must say, to alarm one. I

grew bolder, and putting both hands in as well as I could, I pulled it to

me, and it came. It was heavy, but moved more easily than I had expected.

As I pulled it towards the entrance, my left elbow knocked over and

extinguished the candle. I got the thing fairly in front of the mouth and

began drawing it out. Just then Brown gave a sharp ejaculation and ran

quickly up the steps with the lantern. He will tell you why in a moment.

Startled as I was, I looked round after him, and saw him stand for a

minute at the top and then walk away a few yards. Then I heard him call

softly, "All right, sir," and went on pulling out the great bag, in

complete darkness. It hung for an instant on the edge of the hole, then

slipped forward on to my chest, and _put its arms round my neck_.

'My dear Gregory, I am telling you the exact truth. I believe I am now

acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can

endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now

the bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible

smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and

moving slowly over it, and of several--I don't know how many--legs or

arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body. I screamed out, Brownsays, like a beast, and fell away backward from the step on which I

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stood, and the creature slipped downwards, I suppose, on to that same

step. Providentially the band round me held firm. Brown did not lose his

head, and was strong enough to pull me up to the top and get me over the

edge quite promptly. How he managed it exactly I don't know, and I think

he would find it hard to tell you. I believe he contrived to hide our

implements in the deserted building near by, and with very greatdifficulty he got me back to the inn. I was in no state to make

explanations, and Brown knows no German; but next morning I told the

people some tale of having had a bad fall in the abbey ruins, which I

suppose they believed. And now, before I go further, I should just like

you to hear what Brown's experiences during those few minutes were. Tell

the Rector, Brown, what you told me.'

'Well, sir,' said Brown, speaking low and nervously, 'it was just this

way. Master was busy down in front of the 'ole, and I was 'olding the

lantern and looking on, when I 'eard somethink drop in the water from the

top, as I thought. So I looked up, and I see someone's 'ead lookin' over

at us. I s'pose I must ha' said somethink, and I 'eld the light up and

run up the steps, and my light shone right on the face. That was a bad

un, sir, if ever I see one! A holdish man, and the face very much fell

in, and larfin', as I thought. And I got up the steps as quick pretty

nigh as I'm tellin' you, and when I was out on the ground there warn't a

sign of any person. There 'adn't been the time for anyone to get away,

let alone a hold chap, and I made sure he warn't crouching down by the

well, nor nothink. Next thing I hear master cry out somethink 'orrible,

and hall I see was him hanging out by the rope, and, as master says,

'owever I got him up I couldn't tell you.'

'You hear that, Gregory?' said Mr Somerton. 'Now, does any explanation of

that incident strike you?'

'The whole thing is so ghastly and abnormal that I must own it puts me

quite off my balance; but the thought did occur to me that possibly

the--well, the person who set the trap might have come to see the success

of his plan.'

'Just so, Gregory, just so. I can think of nothing else so--_likely_, I

should say, if such a word had a place anywhere in my story. I think it

must have been the Abbot.... Well, I haven't much more to tell you. I

spent a miserable night, Brown sitting up with me. Next day I was no

better; unable to get up; no doctor to be had; and if one had been

available, I doubt if he could have done much for me. I made Brown write

off to you, and spent a second terrible night. And, Gregory, of this I am

sure, and I think it affected me more than the first shock, for it lasted

longer: there was someone or something on the watch outside my door the

whole night. I almost fancy there were two. It wasn't only the faint

noises I heard from time to time all through the dark hours, but there

was the smell--the hideous smell of mould. Every rag I had had on me onthat first evening I had stripped off and made Brown take it away. I

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believe he stuffed the things into the stove in his room; and yet the

smell was there, as intense as it had been in the well; and, what is

more, it came from outside the door. But with the first glimmer of dawn

it faded out, and the sounds ceased, too; and that convinced me that the

thing or things were creatures of darkness, and could not stand the

daylight; and so I was sure that if anyone could put back the stone, itor they would be powerless until someone else took it away again. I had

to wait until you came to get that done. Of course, I couldn't send Brown

to do it by himself, and still less could I tell anyone who belonged to

the place.

'Well, there is my story; and, if you don't believe it, I can't help it.

But I think you do.'

'Indeed,' said Mr Gregory, 'I can find no alternative. I _must_ believe

it! I saw the well and the stone myself, and had a glimpse, I thought, of

the bags or something else in the hole. And, to be plain with you,

Somerton, I believe my door was watched last night, too.'

'I dare say it was, Gregory; but, thank goodness, that is over. Have you,

by the way, anything to tell about your visit to that dreadful place?'

'Very little,' was the answer. 'Brown and I managed easily enough to get

the slab into its place, and he fixed it very firmly with the irons and

wedges you had desired him to get, and we contrived to smear the surface

with mud so that it looks just like the rest of the wall. One thing I did

notice in the carving on the well-head, which I think must have escapedyou. It was a horrid, grotesque shape--perhaps more like a toad than

anything else, and there was a label by it inscribed with the two words,

"Depositum custodi".'[9]

[9] 'Keep that which is committed to thee.'

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THE TURN OF THE SCREW

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless,

butexcept the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, onChristmas Evein an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, Iremember nocomment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was theonly casehe had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. Thecase, I

may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an oldhouse as hadgathered us for the occasion--an appearance, of a dreadfulkind, to alittle boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking herup in theterror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothehim tosleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had

succeededin doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was thisobservationthat drew from Douglas--not immediately, but later in theevening--areply that had the interesting consequence to which I callattention.Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which I sawhe wasnot following. This I took for a sign that he had himself something toproduce and that we should only have to wait. We waited infact till twonights later; but that same evening, before we scattered, hebrought outwhat was in his mind.

"I quite agree--in regard to Griffin's ghost, or whatever it was--thatits appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a

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particular touch. But it's not the first occurrence of its charmingkind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives theeffectanother turn of the screw, what do you say to TWO children--?"

"We say, of course," somebody exclaimed, "that they give twoturns! Alsothat we want to hear about them."

I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got uptopresent his back, looking down at his interlocutor with hishands in

his pockets. "Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It's quitetoohorrible." This, naturally, was declared by several voices to givethething the utmost price, and our friend, with quiet art, preparedhistriumph by turning his eyes over the rest of us and going on:"It'sbeyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it."

"For sheer terror?" I remember asking.

He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at alosshow to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made alittlewincing grimace. "For dreadful--dreadfulness!"

"Oh, how delicious!" cried one of the women.

He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me,he saw what he spoke of. "For general uncanny ugliness andhorror andpain."

"Well then," I said, "just sit right down and begin."

He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it an

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instant. Then as he faced us again: "I can't begin. I shall have tosendto town." There was a unanimous groan at this, and muchreproach; after

which, in his preoccupied way, he explained. "The story'swritten. It'sin a locked drawer--it has not been out for years. I could writeto myman and enclose the key; he could send down the packet as hefinds it."It was to me in particular that he appeared to propound this--appearedalmost to appeal for aid not to hesitate. He had broken a

thicknessof ice, the formation of many a winter; had had his reasons fora longsilence. The others resented postponement, but it was just hisscruplesthat charmed me. I adjured him to write by the first post and toagreewith us for an early hearing; then I asked him if the experiencein

question had been his own. To this his answer was prompt. "Oh,thankGod, no!"

"And is the record yours? You took the thing down?"

"Nothing but the impression. I took that HERE"--he tapped hisheart."I've never lost it."

"Then your manuscript--?"

"Is in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand." He hungfireagain. "A woman's. She has been dead these twenty years. Shesent me thepages in question before she died." They were all listening now,andof course there was somebody to be arch, or at any rate todraw the

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inference. But if he put the inference by without a smile it wasalsowithout irritation. "She was a most charming person, but shewas ten

years older than I. She was my sister's governess," he quietlysaid."She was the most agreeable woman I've ever known in herposition;she would have been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago,and thisepisode was long before. I was at Trinity, and I found her athome onmy coming down the second summer. I was much there that

year--it was abeautiful one; and we had, in her off-hours, some strolls andtalks inthe garden--talks in which she struck me as awfully clever andnice. Ohyes; don't grin: I liked her extremely and am glad to this day tothinkshe liked me, too. If she hadn't she wouldn't have told me. Shehad

never told anyone. It wasn't simply that she said so, but that Iknewshe hadn't. I was sure; I could see. You'll easily judge why whenyouhear."

"Because the thing had been such a scare?"

He continued to fix me. "You'll easily judge," he repeated: "YOUwill."

I fixed him, too. "I see. She was in love."

He laughed for the first time. "You ARE acute. Yes, she was inlove.

That is, she had been. That came out--she couldn't tell her storywithout its coming out. I saw it, and she saw I saw it; butneither of us spoke of it. I remember the time and the place--the corner of the

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lawn, the shade of the great beeches and the long, hot summerafternoon.It wasn't a scene for a shudder; but oh--!" He quitted the fireand

dropped back into his chair.

"You'll receive the packet Thursday morning?" I inquired.

"Probably not till the second post."

"Well then; after dinner--"

"You'll all meet me here?" He looked us round again. "Isn't

anybodygoing?" It was almost the tone of hope.

"Everybody will stay!"

"_I_ will"--and "_I_ will!" cried the ladies whose departure hadbeenfixed. Mrs. Griffin, however, expressed the need for a little morelight. "Who was it she was in love with?"

"The story will tell," I took upon myself to reply.

"Oh, I can't wait for the story!"

"The story WON'T tell," said Douglas; "not in any literal, vulgarway."

"More's the pity, then. That's the only way I ever understand."

"Won't YOU tell, Douglas?" somebody else inquired.

He sprang to his feet again. "Yes--tomorrow. Now I must go tobed.Good night." And quickly catching up a candlestick, he left usslightlybewildered. From our end of the great brown hall we heard hisstep onthe stair; whereupon Mrs. Griffin spoke. "Well, if I don't knowwho she

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was in love with, I know who HE was."

"She was ten years older," said her husband.

"Raison de plus--at that age! But it's rather nice, his longreticence."

"Forty years!" Griffin put in.

"With this outbreak at last."

"The outbreak," I returned, "will make a tremendous occasionof Thursday

night;" and everyone so agreed with me that, in the light of it,we lostall attention for everything else. The last story, howeverincompleteand like the mere opening of a serial, had been told; wehandshook and"candlestuck," as somebody said, and went to bed.

I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, by the

firstpost, gone off to his London apartments; but in spite of--orperhaps

just on account of--the eventual diffusion of this knowledge wequitelet him alone till after dinner, till such an hour of the evening, infact, as might best accord with the kind of emotion on whichour hopeswere fixed. Then he became as communicative as we coulddesire andindeed gave us his best reason for being so. We had it from himagainbefore the fire in the hall, as we had had our mild wonders of theprevious night. It appeared that the narrative he had promisedto readus really required for a proper intelligence a few words of prologue.Let me say here distinctly, to have done with it, that thisnarrative,

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from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what Ishallpresently give. Poor Douglas, before his death--when it was insight--committed to me the manuscript that reached him on the

third of these days and that, on the same spot, with immense effect, hebeganto read to our hushed little circle on the night of the fourth. Thedeparting ladies who had said they would stay didn't, of course,thankheaven, stay: they departed, in consequence of arrangementsmade, in arage of curiosity, as they professed, produced by the touches

withwhich he had already worked us up. But that only made hislittle finalauditory more compact and select, kept it, round the hearth,subject toa common thrill.

The first of these touches conveyed that the written statementtook up

the tale at a point after it had, in a manner, begun. The fact tobe inpossession of was therefore that his old friend, the youngest of severaldaughters of a poor country parson, had, at the age of twenty,on takingservice for the first time in the schoolroom, come up to London,intrepidation, to answer in person an advertisement that hadalreadyplaced her in brief correspondence with the advertiser. Thispersonproved, on her presenting herself, for judgment, at a house inHarleyStreet, that impressed her as vast and imposing--thisprospective patronproved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such afigure ashad never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before afluttered,

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anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily fixhis type;it never, happily, dies out. He was handsome and bold andpleasant,

offhand and gay and kind. He struck her, inevitably, as gallantandsplendid, but what took her most of all and gave her thecourage sheafterward showed was that he put the whole thing to her as akind of favor, an obligation he should gratefully incur. She conceivedhimas rich, but as fearfully extravagant--saw him all in a glow of

highfashion, of good looks, of expensive habits, of charming wayswithwomen. He had for his own town residence a big house filledwith thespoils of travel and the trophies of the chase; but it was to hiscountry home, an old family place in Essex, that he wished herimmediately to proceed.

He had been left, by the death of their parents in India,guardian toa small nephew and a small niece, children of a younger, amilitarybrother, whom he had lost two years before. These childrenwere, by thestrangest of chances for a man in his position--a lone manwithout theright sort of experience or a grain of patience--very heavily onhishands. It had all been a great worry and, on his own partdoubtless, aseries of blunders, but he immensely pitied the poor chicks andhad doneall he could; had in particular sent them down to his otherhouse, theproper place for them being of course the country, and keptthem there,from the first, with the best people he could find to look afterthem,

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parting even with his own servants to wait on them and goingdownhimself, whenever he might, to see how they were doing. Theawkward

thing was that they had practically no other relations and thathisown affairs took up all his time. He had put them in possessionof Bly,which was healthy and secure, and had placed at the head of their littleestablishment--but below stairs only--an excellent woman, Mrs.Grose,whom he was sure his visitor would like and who had formerly

been maidto his mother. She was now housekeeper and was also actingfor the timeas superintendent to the little girl, of whom, without children of herown, she was, by good luck, extremely fond. There were plentyof peopleto help, but of course the young lady who should go down asgoverness

would be in supreme authority. She would also have, inholidays, to lookafter the small boy, who had been for a term at school--youngas he wasto be sent, but what else could be done?--and who, as theholidays wereabout to begin, would be back from one day to the other. Therehadbeen for the two children at first a young lady whom they hadhad themisfortune to lose. She had done for them quite beautifully--shewas amost respectable person--till her death, the great awkwardnessof whichhad, precisely, left no alternative but the school for little Miles.Mrs. Grose, since then, in the way of manners and things, haddone asshe could for Flora; and there were, further, a cook, ahousemaid, a

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dairywoman, an old pony, an old groom, and an old gardener,all likewisethoroughly respectable.

So far had Douglas presented his picture when someone put aquestion."And what did the former governess die of?--of so muchrespectability?"

Our friend's answer was prompt. "That will come out. I don'tanticipate."

"Excuse me--I thought that was just what you ARE doing."

"In her successor's place," I suggested, "I should have wishedto learnif the office brought with it--"

"Necessary danger to life?" Douglas completed my thought."She did wishto learn, and she did learn. You shall hear tomorrow what shelearned.

Meanwhile, of course, the prospect struck her as slightly grim.She wasyoung, untried, nervous: it was a vision of serious duties andlittlecompany, of really great loneliness. She hesitated--took acouple of days to consult and consider. But the salary offered muchexceededher modest measure, and on a second interview she faced themusic, sheengaged." And Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for thebenefit of the company, moved me to throw in--

"The moral of which was of course the seduction exercised bythesplendid young man. She succumbed to it."

He got up and, as he had done the night before, went to thefire, gave

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a stir to a log with his foot, then stood a moment with his backto us."She saw him only twice."

"Yes, but that's just the beauty of her passion."

A little to my surprise, on this, Douglas turned round to me. "ItWASthe beauty of it. There were others," he went on, "who hadn'tsuccumbed.He told her frankly all his difficulty--that for several applicantstheconditions had been prohibitive. They were, somehow, simply

afraid. Itsounded dull--it sounded strange; and all the more so becauseof hismain condition."

"Which was--?"

"That she should never trouble him--but never, never: neitherappeal

nor complain nor write about anything; only meet all questionsherself,receive all moneys from his solicitor, take the whole thing overand lethim alone. She promised to do this, and she mentioned to methat when,for a moment, disburdened, delighted, he held her hand,thanking her forthe sacrifice, she already felt rewarded."

"But was that all her reward?" one of the ladies asked.

"She never saw him again."

"Oh!" said the lady; which, as our friend immediately left usagain, wasthe only other word of importance contributed to the subjecttill, thenext night, by the corner of the hearth, in the best chair, heopened

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the faded red cover of a thin old-fashioned gilt-edged album. The wholething took indeed more nights than one, but on the firstoccasion the

same lady put another question. "What is your title?"

"I haven't one."

"Oh, _I_ have!" I said. But Douglas, without heeding me, hadbegun toread with a fine clearness that was like a rendering to the earof thebeauty of his author's hand.

I

I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights anddrops, a

little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, intown,to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very baddays--foundmyself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. Inthisstate of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swingingcoach thatcarried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by avehiclefrom the house. This convenience, I was told, had beenordered, andI found, toward the close of the June afternoon, a commodiousfly inwaiting for me. Driving at that hour, on a lovely day, through acountryto which the summer sweetness seemed to offer me a friendlywelcome, myfortitude mounted afresh and, as we turned into the avenue,encountered

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a reprieve that was probably but a proof of the point to which ithadsunk. I suppose I had expected, or had dreaded, something somelancholy

that what greeted me was a good surprise. I remember as amost pleasantimpression the broad, clear front, its open windows and freshcurtainsand the pair of maids looking out; I remember the lawn and thebrightflowers and the crunch of my wheels on the gravel and theclusteredtreetops over which the rooks circled and cawed in the golden

sky. Thescene had a greatness that made it a different affair from myown scanthome, and there immediately appeared at the door, with a littlegirl inher hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsy asif I hadbeen the mistress or a distinguished visitor. I had received inHarley

Street a narrower notion of the place, and that, as I recalled it,mademe think the proprietor still more of a gentleman, suggestedthat what Iwas to enjoy might be something beyond his promise.

I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carriedtriumphantlythrough the following hours by my introduction to the youngerof mypupils. The little girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose appeared tome on thespot a creature so charming as to make it a great fortune tohave todo with her. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen,and Iafterward wondered that my employer had not told me more of her. I sleptlittle that night--I was too much excited; and this astonishedme, too,

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I recollect, remained with me, adding to my sense of theliberality withwhich I was treated. The large, impressive room, one of thebest in

the house, the great state bed, as I almost felt it, the full,figureddraperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, I couldseemyself from head to foot, all struck me--like the extraordinarycharm of my small charge--as so many things thrown in. It was thrown inaswell, from the first moment, that I should get on with Mrs.

Grose ina relation over which, on my way, in the coach, I fear I hadratherbrooded. The only thing indeed that in this early outlook mighthavemade me shrink again was the clear circumstance of her beingso gladto see me. I perceived within half an hour that she was soglad--stout,

simple, plain, clean, wholesome woman--as to be positively onher guardagainst showing it too much. I wondered even then a little whysheshould wish not to show it, and that, with reflection, withsuspicion,might of course have made me uneasy.

But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in aconnectionwith anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl,thevision of whose angelic beauty had probably more thananything else todo with the restlessness that, before morning, made me severaltimesrise and wander about my room to take in the whole pictureand prospect;to watch, from my open window, the faint summer dawn, tolook at such

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portions of the rest of the house as I could catch, and to listen,while, in the fading dusk, the first birds began to twitter, for thepossible recurrence of a sound or two, less natural and notwithout,

but within, that I had fancied I heard. There had been amoment when Ibelieved I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; there hadbeenanother when I found myself just consciously starting as at thepassage,before my door, of a light footstep. But these fancies were notmarkedenough not to be thrown off, and it is only in the light, or the

gloom,I should rather say, of other and subsequent matters that theynow comeback to me. To watch, teach, "form" little Flora would tooevidentlybe the making of a happy and useful life. It had been agreedbetween usdownstairs that after this first occasion I should have her as amatter

of course at night, her small white bed being already arranged,to thatend, in my room. What I had undertaken was the whole care of her, andshe had remained, just this last time, with Mrs. Grose only asan effectof our consideration for my inevitable strangeness and hernaturaltimidity. In spite of this timidity--which the child herself, in theoddest way in the world, had been perfectly frank and braveabout,allowing it, without a sign of uncomfortable consciousness, withthedeep, sweet serenity indeed of one of Raphael's holy infants, tobediscussed, to be imputed to her, and to determine us--I feelquite sureshe would presently like me. It was part of what I already likedMrs.

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Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in myadmirationand wonder as I sat at supper with four tall candles and withmy pupil,

in a high chair and a bib, brightly facing me, between them,over breadand milk. There were naturally things that in Flora's presencecouldpass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, obscureandroundabout allusions.

"And the little boy--does he look like her? Is he too so very

remarkable?"

One wouldn't flatter a child. "Oh, miss, MOST remarkable. If youthinkwell of this one!"--and she stood there with a plate in her hand,beaming at our companion, who looked from one of us to theother withplacid heavenly eyes that contained nothing to check us.

"Yes; if I do--?"

"You WILL be carried away by the little gentleman!"

"Well, that, I think, is what I came for--to be carried away. I'mafraid, however," I remember feeling the impulse to add, "I'mrathereasily carried away. I was carried away in London!"

I can still see Mrs. Grose's broad face as she took this in. "InHarleyStreet?"

"In Harley Street."

"Well, miss, you're not the first--and you won't be the last."

"Oh, I've no pretension," I could laugh, "to being the only one.My

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other pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes backtomorrow?"

"Not tomorrow--Friday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the

coach, undercare of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage."

I forthwith expressed that the proper as well as the pleasantandfriendly thing would be therefore that on the arrival of thepublicconveyance I should be in waiting for him with his little sister;an

idea in which Mrs. Grose concurred so heartily that I somehowtookher manner as a kind of comforting pledge--never falsified,thankheaven!--that we should on every question be quite at one. Oh,she wasglad I was there!

What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could be

fairlycalled a reaction from the cheer of my arrival; it was probablyat themost only a slight oppression produced by a fuller measure of thescale, as I walked round them, gazed up at them, took them in,of my newcircumstances. They had, as it were, an extent and mass forwhich I hadnot been prepared and in the presence of which I found myself,freshly,a little scared as well as a little proud. Lessons, in this agitation,certainly suffered some delay; I reflected that my first dutywas, bythe gentlest arts I could contrive, to win the child into the senseof knowing me. I spent the day with her out-of-doors; I arrangedwith her,to her great satisfaction, that it should be she, she only, whomight

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show me the place. She showed it step by step and room byroom andsecret by secret, with droll, delightful, childish talk about it andwith the result, in half an hour, of our becoming immense

friends. Young as she was, I was struck, throughout our little tour, withher confidence and courage with the way, in empty chambersand dullcorridors, on crooked staircases that made me pause and evenon thesummit of an old machicolated square tower that made medizzy, hermorning music, her disposition to tell me so many more things

than sheasked, rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly since theday I leftit, and I daresay that to my older and more informed eyes itwould nowappear sufficiently contracted. But as my little conductress,with herhair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me roundcorners and

pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of romanceinhabitedby a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for diversionof theyoung idea, take all color out of storybooks and fairytales.Wasn't it

just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze and adream? No;it was abig, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a fewfeatures of a building still older, half-replaced and half-utilized, in which Ihadthe fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengersin agreat drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the helm!

II

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This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over withFlora to

meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the moreforan incident that, presenting itself the second evening, haddeeplydisconcerted me. The first day had been, on the whole, as Ihaveexpressed, reassuring; but I was to see it wind up in keenapprehension.

The postbag, that evening--it came late--contained a letter for

me,which, however, in the hand of my employer, I found to becomposed butof a few words enclosing another, addressed to himself, with asealstill unbroken. "This, I recognize, is from the headmaster, andtheheadmaster's an awful bore. Read him, please; deal with him;but mind

you don't report. Not a word. I'm off!" I broke the seal with agreateffort--so great a one that I was a long time coming to it; tooktheunopened missive at last up to my room and only attacked it

just beforegoing to bed. I had better have let it wait till morning, for itgave mea second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, the next day,Iwas full of distress; and it finally got so the better of me that Idetermined to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose.

"What does it mean? The child's dismissed his school."

She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then,visibly, with aquick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. "But aren't theyall--?"

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"Sent home--yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never goback atall."

Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. "They won'ttake him?"

"They absolutely decline."

At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; Isaw themfill with good tears. "What has he done?"

I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter--which,however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simplyput herhands behind her. She shook her head sadly. "Such things arenot for me,miss."

My counselor couldn't read! I winced at my mistake, which I

attenuatedas I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then,faltering in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back inmypocket. "Is he really BAD?"

The tears were still in her eyes. "Do the gentlemen say so?"

"They go into no particulars. They simply express their regretthat itshould be impossible to keep him. That can have only onemeaning."Mrs. Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask mewhatthis meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing withsomecoherence and with the mere aid of her presence to my ownmind, I wenton: "That he's an injury to the others."

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At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenlyflamedup. "Master Miles! HIM an injury?"

There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had notyetseen the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea.I found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, on thespot,sarcastically. "To his poor little innocent mates!"

"It's too dreadful," cried Mrs. Grose, "to say such cruel things!

Why,he's scarce ten years old."

"Yes, yes; it would be incredible."

She was evidently grateful for such a profession. "See him,miss, first.

THEN believe it!" I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; itwas

the beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, was todeepenalmost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of whatshe hadproduced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. "Youmight aswell believe it of the little lady. Bless her," she added the nextmoment--"LOOK at her!"

I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I hadestablishedin the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, and acopy of nice "round o's," now presented herself to view at the opendoor.She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachmentfromdisagreeable duties, looking to me, however, with a greatchildish

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light that seemed to offer it as a mere result of the affectionshe hadconceived for my person, which had rendered necessary thatshe should

follow me. I needed nothing more than this to feel the full forceof Mrs. Grose's comparison, and, catching my pupil in my arms,covered herwith kisses in which there was a sob of atonement.

Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasiontoapproach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began

to fancyshe rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, onthestaircase; we went down together, and at the bottom I detainedher,holding her there with a hand on her arm. "I take what you saidto me atnoon as a declaration that YOU'VE never known him to be bad."

She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, andveryhonestly, adopted an attitude. "Oh, never known him--I don'tpretend

THAT!"

I was upset again. "Then you HAVE known him--?"

"Yes indeed, miss, thank God!"

On reflection I accepted this. "You mean that a boy who neveris--?"

"Is no boy for ME!"

I held her tighter. "You like them with the spirit to be naughty?" Then,keeping pace with her answer, "So do I!" I eagerly brought out."But notto the degree to contaminate--"

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"To contaminate?"--my big word left her at a loss. I explained it."Tocorrupt."

She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her anodd laugh."Are you afraid he'll corrupt YOU?" She put the question withsuch afine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, tomatchher own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule.

But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, Icropped up inanother place. "What was the lady who was here before?"

"The last governess? She was also young and pretty--almost asyoung andalmost as pretty, miss, even as you."

"Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!" Irecollectthrowing off. "He seems to like us young and pretty!"

"Oh, he DID," Mrs. Grose assented: "it was the way he likedeveryone!"She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up. "Imeanthat's HIS way--the master's."

I was struck. "But of whom did you speak first?"

She looked blank, but she colored. "Why, of HIM."

"Of the master?"

"Of who else?"

There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I hadlost my

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impression of her having accidentally said more than shemeant; and Imerely asked what I wanted to know. "Did SHE see anything inthe boy--?"

"That wasn't right? She never told me."

I had a scruple, but I overcame it. "Was she careful--particular?"

Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. "About somethings--yes."

"But not about all?"

Again she considered. "Well, miss--she's gone. I won't telltales."

"I quite understand your feeling," I hastened to reply; but Ithoughtit, after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue:"Did shedie here?"

"No--she went off."

I don't know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose's thatstruckme as ambiguous. "Went off to die?" Mrs. Grose looked straightout of the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to knowwhatyoung persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. "She wastaken ill,you mean, and went home?"

"She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. Sheleft it,at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a shortholiday,to which the time she had put in had certainly given her a right.We

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had then a young woman--a nursemaid who had stayed on andwho was a goodgirl and clever; and SHE took the children altogether for theinterval.

But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment Iwasexpecting her I heard from the master that she was dead."

I turned this over. "But of what?"

"He never told me! But please, miss," said Mrs. Grose, "I mustget to mywork."

III

Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just

preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of ourmutual esteem.We met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimatelythan everon the ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion: somonstrous was Ithen ready to pronounce it that such a child as had now beenrevealed tome should be under an interdict. I was a little late on the scene,andI felt, as he stood wistfully looking out for me before the door of theinn at which the coach had put him down, that I had seen him,on theinstant, without and within, in the great glow of freshness, thesamepositive fragrance of purity, in which I had, from the firstmoment,seen his little sister. He was incredibly beautiful, and Mrs. Grosehad

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put her finger on it: everything but a sort of passion of tenderness forhim was swept away by his presence. What I then and theretook him to

my heart for was something divine that I have never found tothe samedegree in any child--his indescribable little air of knowingnothing inthe world but love. It would have been impossible to carry abad namewith a greater sweetness of innocence, and by the time I hadgot back toBly with him I remained merely bewildered--so far, that is, as I

was notoutraged--by the sense of the horrible letter locked up in myroom, ina drawer. As soon as I could compass a private word with Mrs.Grose Ideclared to her that it was grotesque.

She promptly understood me. "You mean the cruel charge--?"

"It doesn't live an instant. My dear woman, LOOK at him!"

She smiled at my pretention to have discovered his charm. "Iassureyou, miss, I do nothing else! What will you say, then?" sheimmediatelyadded.

"In answer to the letter?" I had made up my mind. "Nothing."

"And to his uncle?"

I was incisive. "Nothing."

"And to the boy himself?"

I was wonderful. "Nothing."

She gave with her apron a great wipe to her mouth. "Then I'llstand by

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you. We'll see it out."

"We'll see it out!" I ardently echoed, giving her my hand tomake it a

vow.

She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron againwith herdetached hand. "Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom--"

"To kiss me? No!" I took the good creature in my arms and,after we hadembraced like sisters, felt still more fortified and indignant.

This, at all events, was for the time: a time so full that, as Irecallthe way it went, it reminds me of all the art I now need to makeit alittle distinct. What I look back at with amazement is thesituation Iaccepted. I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out,and I was

under a charm, apparently, that could smooth away the extentand thefar and difficult connections of such an effort. I was lifted alofton agreat wave of infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in myignorance,my confusion, and perhaps my conceit, to assume that I coulddeal witha boy whose education for the world was all on the point of beginning.I am unable even to remember at this day what proposal Iframed for theend of his holidays and the resumption of his studies. Lessonswith me,indeed, that charming summer, we all had a theory that he wasto have;but I now feel that, for weeks, the lessons must have beenrather myown. I learned something--at first, certainly--that had not beenone

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of the teachings of my small, smothered life; learned to beamused, andeven amusing, and not to think for the morrow. It was the firsttime, in

a manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, all themusicof summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there wasconsideration--and consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trap--notdesigned, but deep--to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhapsto myvanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way topicture

it all is to say that I was off my guard. They gave me so littletrouble--they were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used tospeculate--but even this with a dim disconnectedness--as tohow therough future (for all futures are rough!) would handle them andmightbruise them. They had the bloom of health and happiness; andyet, asif I had been in charge of a pair of little grandees, of princes of

theblood, for whom everything, to be right, would have to beenclosed andprotected, the only form that, in my fancy, the afteryears couldtakefor them was that of a romantic, a really royal extension of thegardenand the park. It may be, of course, above all, that whatsuddenly brokeinto this gives the previous time a charm of stillness--that hushinwhich something gathers or crouches. The change was actuallylike thespring of a beast.

In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest,gave me what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, formy pupils,teatime and bedtime having come and gone, I had, before myfinal

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retirement, a small interval alone. Much as I liked mycompanions, thishour was the thing in the day I liked most; and I liked it best of all

when, as the light faded--or rather, I should say, the daylingered andthe last calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, fromtheold trees--I could take a turn into the grounds and enjoy, almostwitha sense of property that amused and flattered me, the beautyand dignityof the place. It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself

tranquil and justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that bymydiscretion, my quiet good sense and general high propriety, Iwas givingpleasure--if he ever thought of it!--to the person to whosepressureI had responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestlyhoped anddirectly asked of me, and that I COULD, after all, do it proved

even agreater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, inshort,a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith thatthis wouldmore publicly appear. Well, I needed to be remarkable to offera frontto the remarkable things that presently gave their first sign.

It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: thechildrenwere tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of thethoughtsthat, as I don't in the least shrink now from noting, used to bewith mein these wanderings was that it would be as charming as acharming storysuddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear there atthe turn of a

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path and would stand before me and smile and approve. Ididn't ask morethan that--I only asked that he should KNOW; and the only wayto be sure

he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in hishandsomeface. That was exactly present to me--by which I mean the facewas--when, on the first of these occasions, at the end of a long

Juneday, I stopped short on emerging from one of the plantationsand cominginto view of the house. What arrested me on the spot--and witha shock

much greater than any vision had allowed for--was the sensethat myimagination had, in a flash, turned real. He did stand there!--but highup, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the tower to which,on thatfirst morning, little Flora had conducted me. This tower was oneof a pair--square, incongruous, crenelated structures--that were

distinguished, for some reason, though I could see littledifference,as the new and the old. They flanked opposite ends of thehouse and wereprobably architectural absurdities, redeemed in a measureindeed bynot being wholly disengaged nor of a height too pretentious,dating, intheir gingerbread antiquity, from a romantic revival that wasalready arespectable past. I admired them, had fancies about them, forwe couldall profit in a degree, especially when they loomed through thedusk,by the grandeur of their actual battlements; yet it was not atsuch anelevation that the figure I had so often invoked seemed most inplace.

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It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember,twodistinct gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock of myfirst

and that of my second surprise. My second was a violentperception of the mistake of my first: the man who met my eyes was not thepersonI had precipitately supposed. There came to me thus abewilderment of vision of which, after these years, there is no living view that Icanhope to give. An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted

objectof fear to a young woman privately bred; and the figure thatfaced mewas--a few more seconds assured me--as little anyone else Iknew asit was the image that had been in my mind. I had not seen it inHarley Street--I had not seen it anywhere. The place, moreover,in thestrangest way in the world, had, on the instant, and by the very

fact of its appearance, become a solitude. To me at least, making mystatementhere with a deliberation with which I have never made it, thewholefeeling of the moment returns. It was as if, while I took in--whatI didtake in--all the rest of the scene had been stricken with death. Icanhear again, as I write, the intense hush in which the sounds of eveningdropped. The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky, and thefriendlyhour lost, for the minute, all its voice. But there was no otherchangein nature, unless indeed it were a change that I saw with astrangersharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in the air,and the man who looked at me over the battlements was asdefinite as a

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picture in a frame. That's how I thought, with extraordinaryquickness,of each person that he might have been and that he was not.We were

confronted across our distance quite long enough for me to askmyself with intensity who then he was and to feel, as an effect of myinabilityto say, a wonder that in a few instants more became intense.

The great question, or one of these, is, afterward, I know, withregardto certain matters, the question of how long they have lasted.

Well,this matter of mine, think what you will of it, lasted while Icaught ata dozen possibilities, none of which made a difference for thebetter,that I could see, in there having been in the house--and for howlong,above all?--a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted whileI

just bridled a little with the sense that my office demanded thatthereshould be no such ignorance and no such person. It lasted whilethisvisitant, at all events--and there was a touch of the strangefreedom,as I remember, in the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hat--seemedto fix me, from his position, with just the question, just thescrutinythrough the fading light, that his own presence provoked. Wewere toofar apart to call to each other, but there was a moment atwhich, atshorter range, some challenge between us, breaking the hush,would havebeen the right result of our straight mutual stare. He was in oneof theangles, the one away from the house, very erect, as it struckme, and

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with both hands on the ledge. So I saw him as I see the letters Iform on this page; then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add tothespectacle, he slowly changed his place--passed, looking at me

hardall the while, to the opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I hadthesharpest sense that during this transit he never took his eyesfrom me,and I can see at this moment the way his hand, as he went,passed fromone of the crenelations to the next. He stopped at the othercorner, but

less long, and even as he turned away still markedly fixed me.He turnedaway; that was all I knew.

IV

It was not that I didn't wait, on this occasion, for more, for I wasrooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a "secret" at Bly--amysteryof Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept inunsuspectedconfinement? I can't say how long I turned it over, or how long,ina confusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had hadmycollision; I only recall that when I re-entered the house darknesshadquite closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held meanddriven me, for I must, in circling about the place, have walkedthreemiles; but I was to be, later on, so much more overwhelmedthat thismere dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill. Themost singular

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part of it, in fact--singular as the rest had been--was the part Ibecame, in the hall, aware of in meeting Mrs. Grose. Thispicture comesback to me in the general train--the impression, as I received it

on myreturn, of the wide white panelled space, bright in the lamplightandwith its portraits and red carpet, and of the good surprised lookof my friend, which immediately told me she had missed me. Itcame tome straightway, under her contact, that, with plain heartiness,mere

relieved anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whateverthat couldbear upon the incident I had there ready for her. I had notsuspectedin advance that her comfortable face would pull me up, and Isomehowmeasured the importance of what I had seen by my thusfinding myself hesitate to mention it. Scarce anything in the whole history

seems tome so odd as this fact that my real beginning of fear was one,as Imay say, with the instinct of sparing my companion. On thespot,accordingly, in the pleasant hall and with her eyes on me, I, fora reason that I couldn't then have phrased, achieved an inwardresolution--offered a vague pretext for my lateness and, withthe pleaof the beauty of the night and of the heavy dew and wet feet,went assoon as possible to my room.

Here it was another affair; here, for many days after, it was aqueeraffair enough. There were hours, from day to day--or at leastthere weremoments, snatched even from clear duties--when I had to shutmyself up

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to think. It was not so much yet that I was more nervous than Icouldbear to be as that I was remarkably afraid of becoming so; forthe truth

I had now to turn over was, simply and clearly, the truth that Icouldarrive at no account whatever of the visitor with whom I hadbeen soinexplicably and yet, as it seemed to me, so intimatelyconcerned. Ittook little time to see that I could sound without forms of inquiryand without exciting remark any domestic complications. The

shock I hadsuffered must have sharpened all my senses; I felt sure, at theend of three days and as the result of mere closer attention, that I hadnotbeen practiced upon by the servants nor made the object of any "game."Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me.

There was

but one sane inference: someone had taken a liberty rathergross. Thatwas what, repeatedly, I dipped into my room and locked thedoor to sayto myself. We had been, collectively, subject to an intrusion;someunscrupulous traveler, curious in old houses, had made his wayinunobserved, enjoyed the prospect from the best point of view,and thenstolen out as he came. If he had given me such a bold hardstare, thatwas but a part of his indiscretion. The good thing, after all, wasthatwe should surely see no more of him.

This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge thatwhat, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simplymy charming

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work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora,andthrough nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I couldthrow

myself into it in trouble. The attraction of my small charges wasaconstant joy, leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of myoriginalfears, the distaste I had begun by entertaining for the probablegrayprose of my office. There was to be no gray prose, it appeared,and nolong grind; so how could work not be charming that presented

itself asdaily beauty? It was all the romance of the nursery and thepoetry of the schoolroom. I don't mean by this, of course, that we studiedonly fiction and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise thesortof interest my companions inspired. How can I describe thatexcept bysaying that instead of growing used to them--and it's a marvel

for agoverness: I call the sisterhood to witness!--I made constantfreshdiscoveries. There was one direction, assuredly, in which thesediscoveries stopped: deep obscurity continued to cover theregion of theboy's conduct at school. It had been promptly given me, I havenoted,to face that mystery without a pang. Perhaps even it would benearer thetruth to say that--without a word--he himself had cleared it up.He hadmade the whole charge absurd. My conclusion bloomed therewith thereal rose flush of his innocence: he was only too fine and fair forthelittle horrid, unclean school world, and he had paid a price for it.Ireflected acutely that the sense of such differences, suchsuperiorities

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of quality, always, on the part of the majority--which couldincludeeven stupid, sordid headmasters--turn infallibly to thevindictive.

Both the children had a gentleness (it was their only fault, anditnever made Miles a muff) that kept them--how shall I expressit?--almostimpersonal and certainly quite unpunishable. They were likethe cherubsof the anecdote, who had--morally, at any rate--nothing towhack! I

remember feeling with Miles in especial as if he had had, as itwere, nohistory. We expect of a small child a scant one, but there was inthis beautiful little boy something extraordinarily sensitive, yetextraordinarily happy, that, more than in any creature of hisage I haveseen, struck me as beginning anew each day. He had never fora secondsuffered. I took this as a direct disproof of his having really

beenchastised. If he had been wicked he would have "caught" it,and I shouldhave caught it by the rebound--I should have found the trace. Ifoundnothing at all, and he was therefore an angel. He never spokeof hisschool, never mentioned a comrade or a master; and I, for mypart, wasquite too much disgusted to allude to them. Of course I wasunder thespell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, Iperfectlyknew I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to anypain, and I had more pains than one. I was in receipt in thesedays of disturbing letters from home, where things were not going well.But withmy children, what things in the world mattered? That was thequestion

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I used to put to my scrappy retirements. I was dazzled by theirloveliness.

There was a Sunday--to get on--when it rained with such force

and for somany hours that there could be no procession to church; inconsequenceof which, as the day declined, I had arranged with Mrs. Grosethat,should the evening show improvement, we would attendtogether the lateservice. The rain happily stopped, and I prepared for our walk,which,

through the park and by the good road to the village, would bea matterof twenty minutes. Coming downstairs to meet my colleague inthe hall,I remembered a pair of gloves that had required three stitchesand thathad received them--with a publicity perhaps not edifying--whileI satwith the children at their tea, served on Sundays, by exception,

in thatcold, clean temple of mahogany and brass, the "grown-up"dining room.

The gloves had been dropped there, and I turned in to recoverthem.

The day was gray enough, but the afternoon light still lingered,and itenabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to recognize,on a chairnear the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, but tobecomeaware of a person on the other side of the window and lookingstraightin. One step into the room had sufficed; my vision wasinstantaneous;it was all there. The person looking straight in was the personwho hadalready appeared to me. He appeared thus again with I won'tsay

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greater distinctness, for that was impossible, but with anearness thatrepresented a forward stride in our intercourse and made me,as I met

him, catch my breath and turn cold. He was the same--he wasthe same,and seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the waistup, thewindow, though the dining room was on the ground floor, notgoing downto the terrace on which he stood. His face was close to theglass,yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, only to show

me howintense the former had been. He remained but a few seconds--long enoughto convince me he also saw and recognized; but it was as if Ihad beenlooking at him for years and had known him always. Something,however,happened this time that had not happened before; his stareinto my face,

through the glass and across the room, was as deep and hardas then, butit quitted me for a moment during which I could still watch it,see itfix successively several other things. On the spot there came tome theadded shock of a certitude that it was not for me he had comethere. Hehad come for someone else.

The flash of this knowledge--for it was knowledge in the midstof dread--produced in me the most extraordinary effect, startedas I stoodthere, a sudden vibration of duty and courage. I say couragebecauseI was beyond all doubt already far gone. I bounded straight outof thedoor again, reached that of the house, got, in an instant, uponthe

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drive, and, passing along the terrace as fast as I could rush,turneda corner and came full in sight. But it was in sight of nothingnow--my

visitor had vanished. I stopped, I almost dropped, with the realrelief of this; but I took in the whole scene--I gave him time toreappear. Icall it time, but how long was it? I can't speak to the purposetodayof the duration of these things. That kind of measure must haveleft me:they couldn't have lasted as they actually appeared to me to

last. Theterrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyondit, all Icould see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness.

There wereshrubberies and big trees, but I remember the clear assurance Ifeltthat none of them concealed him. He was there or was notthere: not

there if I didn't see him. I got hold of this; then, instinctively,instead of returning as I had come, went to the window. It wasconfusedly present to me that I ought to place myself where hehadstood. I did so; I applied my face to the pane and looked, as hehadlooked, into the room. As if, at this moment, to show meexactly whathis range had been, Mrs. Grose, as I had done for himself justbefore,came in from the hall. With this I had the full image of arepetition of what had already occurred. She saw me as I had seen my ownvisitant; shepulled up short as I had done; I gave her something of theshock thatI had received. She turned white, and this made me ask myself if I hadblanched as much. She stared, in short, and retreated on justMY lines,

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and I knew she had then passed out and come round to me andthat Ishould presently meet her. I remained where I was, and while Iwaited

I thought of more things than one. But there's only one I takespace tomention. I wondered why SHE should be scared.

V

Oh, she let me know as soon as, round the corner of the house,sheloomed again into view. "What in the name of goodness is thematter--?"She was now flushed and out of breath.

I said nothing till she came quite near. "With me?" I must havemade a

wonderful face. "Do I show it?"

"You're as white as a sheet. You look awful."

I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, anyinnocence. Myneed to respect the bloom of Mrs. Grose's had dropped, withouta rustle,from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was notwith whatI kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held herharda little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support inthe shy heave of her surprise. "You came for me for church, of course,but I can't go."

"Has anything happened?"

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"Yes. You must know now. Did I look very queer?"

"Through this window? Dreadful!"

"Well," I said, "I've been frightened." Mrs. Grose's eyesexpressedplainly that SHE had no wish to be, yet also that she knew toowell herplace not to be ready to share with me any markedinconvenience. Oh,it was quite settled that she MUST share! "Just what you sawfrom thedining room a minute ago was the effect of that. What _I_ saw--

justbefore--was much worse."

Her hand tightened. "What was it?"

"An extraordinary man. Looking in."

"What extraordinary man?"

"I haven't the least idea."

Mrs. Grose gazed round us in vain. "Then where is he gone?"

"I know still less."

"Have you seen him before?"

"Yes--once. On the old tower."

She could only look at me harder. "Do you mean he's astranger?"

"Oh, very much!"

"Yet you didn't tell me?"

"No--for reasons. But now that you've guessed--"

Mrs. Grose's round eyes encountered this charge. "Ah, I haven't

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guessed!" she said very simply. "How can I if YOU don'timagine?"

"I don't in the very least."

"You've seen him nowhere but on the tower?"

"And on this spot just now."

Mrs. Grose looked round again. "What was he doing on thetower?"

"Only standing there and looking down at me."

She thought a minute. "Was he a gentleman?"

I found I had no need to think. "No." She gazed in deeperwonder. "No."

"Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village?"

"Nobody--nobody. I didn't tell you, but I made sure."

She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to thegood. Itonly went indeed a little way. "But if he isn't a gentleman--"

"What IS he? He's a horror."

"A horror?"

"He's--God help me if I know WHAT he is!"

Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on theduskierdistance, then, pulling herself together, turned to me withabruptinconsequence. "It's time we should be at church."

"Oh, I'm not fit for church!"

"Won't it do you good?"

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"It won't do THEM--! I nodded at the house.

"The children?"

"I can't leave them now."

"You're afraid--?"

I spoke boldly. "I'm afraid of HIM."

Mrs. Grose's large face showed me, at this, for the first time,the

faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: Isomehow made outin it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her andthatwas as yet quite obscure to me. It comes back to me that Ithoughtinstantly of this as something I could get from her; and I felt itto beconnected with the desire she presently showed to know more.

"When wasit--on the tower?"

"About the middle of the month. At this same hour."

"Almost at dark," said Mrs. Grose.

"Oh, no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you."

"Then how did he get in?"

"And how did he get out?" I laughed. "I had no opportunity toask him!

This evening, you see," I pursued, "he has not been able to getin."

"He only peeps?"

"I hope it will be confined to that!" She had now let go myhand; she

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turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out: "Gotochurch. Goodbye. I must watch."

Slowly she faced me again. "Do you fear for them?"

We met in another long look. "Don't YOU?" Instead of answering she camenearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to theglass."You see how he could see," I meanwhile went on.

She didn't move. "How long was he here?"

"Till I came out. I came to meet him."

Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in herface."_I_ couldn't have come out."

"Neither could I!" I laughed again. "But I did come. I have myduty."

"So have I mine," she replied; after which she added: "What ishe like?"

"I've been dying to tell you. But he's like nobody."

"Nobody?" she echoed.

"He has no hat." Then seeing in her face that she already, inthis, witha deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, I quickly addedstroke tostroke. "He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a paleface, longin shape, with straight, good features and little, rather queerwhiskersthat are as red as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, darker;theylook particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal.His eyes

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are sharp, strange--awfully; but I only know clearly that they'rerathersmall and very fixed. His mouth's wide, and his lips are thin,and

except for his little whiskers he's quite clean-shaven. He givesme asort of sense of looking like an actor."

"An actor!" It was impossible to resemble one less, at least,than Mrs.Grose at that moment.

"I've never seen one, but so I suppose them. He's tall, active,

erect,"I continued, "but never--no, never!--a gentleman."

My companion's face had blanched as I went on; her roundeyes startedand her mild mouth gaped. "A gentleman?" she gasped,confounded,stupefied: "a gentleman HE?"

"You know him then?"

She visibly tried to hold herself. "But he IS handsome?"

I saw the way to help her. "Remarkably!"

"And dressed--?"

"In somebody's clothes." "They're smart, but they're not hisown."

She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: "They're themaster's!"

I caught it up. "You DO know him?"

She faltered but a second. "Quint!" she cried.

"Quint?"

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"Peter Quint--his own man, his valet, when he was here!"

"When the master was?"

Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. "Henever worehis hat, but he did wear--well, there were waistcoats missed.

They wereboth here--last year. Then the master went, and Quint wasalone."

I followed, but halting a little. "Alone?"

"Alone with US." Then, as from a deeper depth, "In charge," sheadded.

"And what became of him?"

She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. "He went,too,"she brought out at last.

"Went where?"

Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. "God knowswhere! Hedied."

"Died?" I almost shrieked.

She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly toutterthe wonder of it. "Yes. Mr. Quint is dead."

VI

It took of course more than that particular passage to place ustogether

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in presence of what we had now to live with as we could--mydreadfulliability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, andmy

companion's knowledge, henceforth--a knowledge half consternation andhalf compassion--of that liability. There had been, this evening,afterthe revelation left me, for an hour, so prostrate--there hadbeen, foreither of us, no attendance on any service but a little service of tearsand vows, of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of

mutualchallenges and pledges that had straightway ensued on ourretreatingtogether to the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there tohaveeverything out. The result of our having everything out wassimply toreduce our situation to the last rigor of its elements. She herself had

seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in thehouse butthe governess was in the governess's plight; yet she acceptedwithoutdirectly impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, andended byshowing me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, anexpressionof the sense of my more than questionable privilege, of whichthe verybreath has remained with me as that of the sweetest of humancharities.

What was settled between us, accordingly, that night, was thatwethought we might bear things together; and I was not even surethat,in spite of her exemption, it was she who had the best of theburden. I

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knew at this hour, I think, as well as I knew later, what I wascapableof meeting to shelter my pupils; but it took me some time to bewholly

sure of what my honest ally was prepared for to keep termswith socompromising a contract. I was queer company enough--quiteas queer asthe company I received; but as I trace over what we wentthrough I seehow much common ground we must have found in the one ideathat, by goodfortune, COULD steady us. It was the idea, the second

movement, that ledme straight out, as I may say, of the inner chamber of mydread. I couldtake the air in the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could

join me.Perfectly can I recall now the particular way strength came tome beforewe separated for the night. We had gone over and over everyfeature of

what I had seen.

"He was looking for someone else, you say--someone who wasnot you?"

"He was looking for little Miles." A portentous clearness nowpossessedme. "THAT'S whom he was looking for."

"But how do you know?"

"I know, I know, I know!" My exaltation grew. "And YOU know,my dear!"

She didn't deny this, but I required, I felt, not even so muchtellingas that. She resumed in a moment, at any rate: "What if HEshould seehim?"

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"Little Miles? That's what he wants!"

She looked immensely scared again. "The child?"

"Heaven forbid! The man. He wants to appear to THEM." Thathe might wasan awful conception, and yet, somehow, I could keep it at bay;which,moreover, as we lingered there, was what I succeeded inpracticallyproving. I had an absolute certainty that I should see againwhat Ihad already seen, but something within me said that by

offering myself bravely as the sole subject of such experience, by accepting, byinviting, by surmounting it all, I should serve as an expiatoryvictimand guard the tranquility of my companions. The children, inespecial,I should thus fence about and absolutely save. I recall one of the lastthings I said that night to Mrs. Grose.

"It does strike me that my pupils have never mentioned--"

She looked at me hard as I musingly pulled up. "His havingbeen here andthe time they were with him?"

"The time they were with him, and his name, his presence, hishistory,in any way."

"Oh, the little lady doesn't remember. She never heard orknew."

"The circumstances of his death?" I thought with someintensity."Perhaps not. But Miles would remember--Miles would know."

"Ah, don't try him!" broke from Mrs. Grose.

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I returned her the look she had given me. "Don't be afraid." Icontinuedto think. "It IS rather odd."

"That he has never spoken of him?"

"Never by the least allusion. And you tell me they were 'greatfriends'?"

"Oh, it wasn't HIM!" Mrs. Grose with emphasis declared. "It wasQuint'sown fancy. To play with him, I mean--to spoil him." She pauseda moment;

then she added: "Quint was much too free."

This gave me, straight from my vision of his face--SUCH aface!--asudden sickness of disgust. "Too free with MY boy?"

"Too free with everyone!"

I forbore, for the moment, to analyze this description further

than bythe reflection that a part of it applied to several of the membersof the household, of the half-dozen maids and men who were stillof oursmall colony. But there was everything, for our apprehension,in thelucky fact that no discomfortable legend, no perturbation of scullions,had ever, within anyone's memory attached to the kind oldplace. It hadneither bad name nor ill fame, and Mrs. Grose, mostapparently, onlydesired to cling to me and to quake in silence. I even put her,the verylast thing of all, to the test. It was when, at midnight, she hadherhand on the schoolroom door to take leave. "I have it from youthen--for

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it's of great importance--that he was definitely and admittedlybad?"

"Oh, not admittedly. _I_ knew it--but the master didn't."

"And you never told him?"

"Well, he didn't like tale-bearing--he hated complaints. He wasterriblyshort with anything of that kind, and if people were all right toHIM--"

"He wouldn't be bothered with more?" This squared well

enough with myimpressions of him: he was not a trouble-loving gentleman, norso veryparticular perhaps about some of the company HE kept. All thesame, Ipressed my interlocutress. "I promise you _I_ would have told!"

She felt my discrimination. "I daresay I was wrong. But, really, Iwas

afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of things that man could do. Quint was so clever--he was sodeep."

I took this in still more than, probably, I showed. "You weren'tafraidof anything else? Not of his effect--?"

"His effect?" she repeated with a face of anguish and waitingwhile Ifaltered.

"On innocent little precious lives. They were in your charge."

"No, they were not in mine!" she roundly and distressfullyreturned.

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"The master believed in him and placed him here because hewas supposednot to be well and the country air so good for him. So he hadeverything

to say. Yes"--she let me have it--"even about THEM."

"Them--that creature?" I had to smother a kind of howl. "Andyou couldbear it!"

"No. I couldn't--and I can't now!" And the poor woman burstinto tears.

A rigid control, from the next day, was, as I have said, to followthem;yet how often and how passionately, for a week, we came backtogetherto the subject! Much as we had discussed it that Sunday night, Iwas, inthe immediate later hours in especial--for it may be imaginedwhether Islept--still haunted with the shadow of something she had not

told me.I myself had kept back nothing, but there was a word Mrs.Grose had keptback. I was sure, moreover, by morning, that this was not froma failureof frankness, but because on every side there were fears. Itseems to meindeed, in retrospect, that by the time the morrow's sun washigh I hadrestlessly read into the fact before us almost all the meaningthey wereto receive from subsequent and more cruel occurrences. Whatthey gave meabove all was just the sinister figure of the living man--the deadonewould keep awhile!--and of the months he had continuouslypassed at Bly,which, added up, made a formidable stretch. The limit of thisevil time

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had arrived only when, on the dawn of a winter's morning,Peter Quintwas found, by a laborer going to early work, stone dead on theroad

from the village: a catastrophe explained--superficially atleast--by avisible wound to his head; such a wound as might have beenproduced--andas, on the final evidence, HAD been--by a fatal slip, in the darkandafter leaving the public house, on the steepish icy slope, awrongpath altogether, at the bottom of which he lay. The icy slope,

the turnmistaken at night and in liquor, accounted for much--practically, inthe end and after the inquest and boundless chatter, foreverything; butthere had been matters in his life--strange passages and perils,secretdisorders, vices more than suspected--that would haveaccounted for a

good deal more.

I scarce know how to put my story into words that shall be acrediblepicture of my state of mind; but I was in these days literallyable tofind a joy in the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasiondemandedof me. I now saw that I had been asked for a service admirableanddifficult; and there would be a greatness in letting it be seen--oh, inthe right quarter!--that I could succeed where many anothergirl mighthave failed. It was an immense help to me--I confess I ratherapplaudmyself as I look back!--that I saw my service so strongly and sosimply.I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in theworld the

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most bereaved and the most lovable, the appeal of whosehelplessness hadsuddenly become only too explicit, a deep, constant ache of one's own

committed heart. We were cut off, really, together; we wereunited inour danger. They had nothing but me, and I--well, I had THEM.It wasin short a magnificent chance. This chance presented itself tome in animage richly material. I was a screen--I was to stand beforethem. Themore I saw, the less they would. I began to watch them in a

stifledsuspense, a disguised excitement that might well, had itcontinued toolong, have turned to something like madness. What saved me,as I nowsee, was that it turned to something else altogether. It didn'tlast assuspense--it was superseded by horrible proofs. Proofs, I say,yes--from

the moment I really took hold.

This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened tospend in thegrounds with the younger of my pupils alone. We had left Milesindoors,on the red cushion of a deep window seat; he had wished tofinish abook, and I had been glad to encourage a purpose so laudablein a youngman whose only defect was an occasional excess of therestless. Hissister, on the contrary, had been alert to come out, and Istrolled withher half an hour, seeking the shade, for the sun was still highand theday exceptionally warm. I was aware afresh, with her, as wewent, of how, like her brother, she contrived--it was the charming thingin both

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children--to let me alone without appearing to drop me and toaccompanyme without appearing to surround. They were neverimportunate and yet

never listless. My attention to them all really went to seeingthemamuse themselves immensely without me: this was a spectaclethey seemedactively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. Iwalkedin a world of their invention--they had no occasion whatever todrawupon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for

them, someremarkable person or thing that the game of the momentrequired and thatwas merely, thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happyand highlydistinguished sinecure. I forget what I was on the presentoccasion;I only remember that I was something very important and veryquiet and

that Flora was playing very hard. We were on the edge of thelake, and,as we had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof.

Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on theotherside of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. Theway thisknowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in theworld--thestrangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which itquicklymerged itself. I had sat down with a piece of work--for I wassomethingor other that could sit--on the old stone bench whichoverlooked thepond; and in this position I began to take in with certitude, andyet

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without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a thirdperson.

The old trees, the thick shrubbery, made a great and pleasantshade, but

it was all suffused with the brightness of the hot, still hour. Therewas no ambiguity in anything; none whatever, at least, in theconvictionI from one moment to another found myself forming as to whatI shouldsee straight before me and across the lake as a consequence of raisingmy eyes. They were attached at this juncture to the stitching in

which Iwas engaged, and I can feel once more the spasm of my effortnot to movethem till I should so have steadied myself as to be able to makeup mymind what to do. There was an alien object in view--a figurewhose rightof presence I instantly, passionately questioned. I recollectcounting

over perfectly the possibilities, reminding myself that nothingwas morenatural, for instance, then the appearance of one of the menabout theplace, or even of a messenger, a postman, or a tradesman'sboy, from thevillage. That reminder had as little effect on my practicalcertitudeas I was conscious--still even without looking--of its havingupon thecharacter and attitude of our visitor. Nothing was more naturalthanthat these things should be the other things that theyabsolutely werenot.

Of the positive identity of the apparition I would assure myself assoon as the small clock of my courage should have ticked outthe right

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second; meanwhile, with an effort that was already sharpenough, Itransferred my eyes straight to little Flora, who, at the moment,was

about ten yards away. My heart had stood still for an instantwith thewonder and terror of the question whether she too would see;and Iheld my breath while I waited for what a cry from her, whatsome suddeninnocent sign either of interest or of alarm, would tell me. Iwaited,but nothing came; then, in the first place--and there is

somethingmore dire in this, I feel, than in anything I have to relate--I wasdetermined by a sense that, within a minute, all sounds fromher hadpreviously dropped; and, in the second, by the circumstancethat, alsowithin the minute, she had, in her play, turned her back to thewater.

This was her attitude when I at last looked at her--looked with

theconfirmed conviction that we were still, together, under directpersonalnotice. She had picked up a small flat piece of wood, whichhappened tohave in it a little hole that had evidently suggested to her theideaof sticking in another fragment that might figure as a mast andmakethe thing a boat. This second morsel, as I watched her, she wasvery markedly and intently attempting to tighten in its place.Myapprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that aftersomeseconds I felt I was ready for more. Then I again shifted myeyes--Ifaced what I had to face.

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VII

I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I cangiveno intelligible account of how I fought out the interval. Yet I stillhear myself cry as I fairly threw myself into her arms: "TheyKNOW--it'stoo monstrous: they know, they know!"

"And what on earth--?" I felt her incredulity as she held me.

"Why, all that WE know--and heaven knows what else besides!" Then, asshe released me, I made it out to her, made it out perhaps onlynow withfull coherency even to myself. "Two hours ago, in the garden"--Icouldscarce articulate--"Flora SAW!"

Mrs. Grose took it as she might have taken a blow in the

stomach. "Shehas told you?" she panted.

"Not a word--that's the horror. She kept it to herself! The childof eight, THAT child!" Unutterable still, for me, was thestupefaction of it.

Mrs. Grose, of course, could only gape the wider. "Then how doyouknow?"

"I was there--I saw with my eyes: saw that she was perfectlyaware."

"Do you mean aware of HIM?"

"No--of HER." I was conscious as I spoke that I lookedprodigious

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things, for I got the slow reflection of them in my companion'sface."Another person--this time; but a figure of quite asunmistakable horror

and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful--with such an airalso,and such a face!--on the other side of the lake. I was there withthechild--quiet for the hour; and in the midst of it she came."

"Came how--from where?"

"From where they come from! She just appeared and stood

there--but notso near."

"And without coming nearer?"

"Oh, for the effect and the feeling, she might have been asclose asyou!"

My friend, with an odd impulse, fell back a step. "Was shesomeoneyou've never seen?"

"Yes. But someone the child has. Someone YOU have." Then, toshow how Ihad thought it all out: "My predecessor--the one who died."

"Miss Jessel?"

"Miss Jessel. You don't believe me?" I pressed.

She turned right and left in her distress. "How can you besure?"

This drew from me, in the state of my nerves, a flash of impatience."Then ask Flora--SHE'S sure!" But I had no sooner spoken than Icaught

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myself up. "No, for God's sake, DON'T! She'll say she isn't--she'lllie!"

Mrs. Grose was not too bewildered instinctively to protest. "Ah,how CANyou?"

"Because I'm clear. Flora doesn't want me to know."

"It's only then to spare you."

"No, no--there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the

more I seein it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don't know whatIDON'T see--what I DON'T fear!"

Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. "You mean you're afraid of seeingher again?"

"Oh, no; that's nothing--now!" Then I explained. "It's of NOTseeingher."

But my companion only looked wan. "I don't understand you."

"Why, it's that the child may keep it up--and that the childassuredlyWILL--without my knowing it."

At the image of this possibility Mrs. Grose for a momentcollapsed, yetpresently to pull herself together again, as if from the positiveforceof the sense of what, should we yield an inch, there wouldreally be togive way to. "Dear, dear--we must keep our heads! And afterall, if shedoesn't mind it--!" She even tried a grim joke. "Perhaps shelikes it!"

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"Likes SUCH things--a scrap of an infant!"

"Isn't it just a proof of her blessed innocence?" my friend

bravelyinquired.

She brought me, for the instant, almost round. "Oh, we mustclutch at

THAT--we must cling to it! If it isn't a proof of what you say, it'saproof of--God knows what! For the woman's a horror of horrors."

Mrs. Grose, at this, fixed her eyes a minute on the ground; thenat lastraising them, "Tell me how you know," she said.

"Then you admit it's what she was?" I cried.

"Tell me how you know," my friend simply repeated.

"Know? By seeing her! By the way she looked."

"At you, do you mean--so wickedly?"

"Dear me, no--I could have borne that. She gave me never aglance. Sheonly fixed the child."

Mrs. Grose tried to see it. "Fixed her?"

"Ah, with such awful eyes!"

She stared at mine as if they might really have resembledthem. "Do youmean of dislike?"

"God help us, no. Of something much worse."

"Worse than dislike?--this left her indeed at a loss.

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"With a determination--indescribable. With a kind of fury of intention."

I made her turn pale. "Intention?"

"To get hold of her." Mrs. Grose--her eyes just lingering onmine--gavea shudder and walked to the window; and while she stood therelookingout I completed my statement. "THAT'S what Flora knows."

After a little she turned round. "The person was in black, yousay?"

"In mourning--rather poor, almost shabby. But--yes--withextraordinarybeauty." I now recognized to what I had at last, stroke bystroke,brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite visiblyweighedthis. "Oh, handsome--very, very," I insisted; "wonderfullyhandsome. But

infamous."

She slowly came back to me. "Miss Jessel--WAS infamous." Sheonce moretook my hand in both her own, holding it as tight as if to fortifymeagainst the increase of alarm I might draw from this disclosure."Theywere both infamous," she finally said.

So, for a little, we faced it once more together; and I foundabsolutelya degree of help in seeing it now so straight. "I appreciate," Isaid,"the great decency of your not having hitherto spoken; but thetime hascertainly come to give me the whole thing." She appeared toassent tothis, but still only in silence; seeing which I went on: "I musthave it

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now. Of what did she die? Come, there was something betweenthem."

"There was everything."

"In spite of the difference--?"

"Oh, of their rank, their condition"--she brought it woefully out."SHEwas a lady."

I turned it over; I again saw. "Yes--she was a lady."

"And he so dreadfully below," said Mrs. Grose.

I felt that I doubtless needn't press too hard, in such company,on theplace of a servant in the scale; but there was nothing toprevent anacceptance of my companion's own measure of mypredecessor's abasement.

There was a way to deal with that, and I dealt; the more readily

formy full vision--on the evidence--of our employer's late clever,good-looking "own" man; impudent, assured, spoiled,depraved. "Thefellow was a hound."

Mrs. Grose considered as if it were perhaps a little a case for asenseof shades. "I've never seen one like him. He did what hewished."

"With HER?"

"With them all."

It was as if now in my friend's own eyes Miss Jessel had againappeared.I seemed at any rate, for an instant, to see their evocation of her

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as distinctly as I had seen her by the pond; and I brought outwithdecision: "It must have been also what SHE wished!"

Mrs. Grose's face signified that it had been indeed, but she saidat thesame time: "Poor woman--she paid for it!"

"Then you do know what she died of?" I asked.

"No--I know nothing. I wanted not to know; I was glad enough Ididn't;and I thanked heaven she was well out of this!"

"Yet you had, then, your idea--"

"Of her real reason for leaving? Oh, yes--as to that. She couldn'thavestayed. Fancy it here--for a governess! And afterward Iimagined--and Istill imagine. And what I imagine is dreadful."

"Not so dreadful as what _I_ do," I replied; on which I must haveshownher--as I was indeed but too conscious--a front of miserabledefeat. Itbrought out again all her compassion for me, and at therenewed touch of her kindness my power to resist broke down. I burst, as I had,the othertime, made her burst, into tears; she took me to her motherlybreast,and my lamentation overflowed. "I don't do it!" I sobbed indespair; "Idon't save or shield them! It's far worse than I dreamed--they'relost!"

VIII

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What I had said to Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were inthe matterI had put before her depths and possibilities that I lacked

resolutionto sound; so that when we met once more in the wonder of itwe were of acommon mind about the duty of resistance to extravagantfancies. We wereto keep our heads if we should keep nothing else--difficultindeed asthat might be in the face of what, in our prodigious experience,was

least to be questioned. Late that night, while the house slept,we hadanother talk in my room, when she went all the way with me asto itsbeing beyond doubt that I had seen exactly what I had seen. Tohold herperfectly in the pinch of that, I found I had only to ask her how,if I had "made it up," I came to be able to give, of each of the

personsappearing to me, a picture disclosing, to the last detail, theirspecial marks--a portrait on the exhibition of which she hadinstantlyrecognized and named them. She wished of course--smallblame to her!--tosink the whole subject; and I was quick to assure her that myowninterest in it had now violently taken the form of a search forthe wayto escape from it. I encountered her on the ground of aprobability thatwith recurrence--for recurrence we took for granted--I shouldgetused to my danger, distinctly professing that my personalexposure hadsuddenly become the least of my discomforts. It was my newsuspicionthat was intolerable; and yet even to this complication the laterhours

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of the day had brought a little ease.

On leaving her, after my first outbreak, I had of course returnedto my

pupils, associating the right remedy for my dismay with thatsense of their charm which I had already found to be a thing I couldpositivelycultivate and which had never failed me yet. I had simply, inotherwords, plunged afresh into Flora's special society and therebecomeaware--it was almost a luxury!--that she could put her little

conscioushand straight upon the spot that ached. She had looked at mein sweetspeculation and then had accused me to my face of having"cried." I hadsupposed I had brushed away the ugly signs: but I couldliterally--forthe time, at all events--rejoice, under this fathomless charity,that

they had not entirely disappeared. To gaze into the depths of blue of the child's eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of prematurecunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which Inaturally preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as mightbe, myagitation. I couldn't abjure for merely wanting to, but I couldrepeatto Mrs. Grose--as I did there, over and over, in the small hours--thatwith their voices in the air, their pressure on one's heart, andtheirfragrant faces against one's cheek, everything fell to theground buttheir incapacity and their beauty. It was a pity that, somehow,tosettle this once for all, I had equally to re-enumerate the signsof

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subtlety that, in the afternoon, by the lake had made a miracleof myshow of self-possession. It was a pity to be obliged toreinvestigate

the certitude of the moment itself and repeat how it had cometo me asa revelation that the inconceivable communion I then surprisedwas amatter, for either party, of habit. It was a pity that I should havehadto quaver out again the reasons for my not having, in mydelusion,so much as questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even

as Iactually saw Mrs. Grose herself, and that she wanted, by just somuch asshe did thus see, to make me suppose she didn't, and at thesame time,without showing anything, arrive at a guess as to whether Imyself did!It was a pity that I needed once more to describe theportentous little

activity by which she sought to divert my attention--theperceptibleincrease of movement, the greater intensity of play, thesinging, thegabbling of nonsense, and the invitation to romp.

Yet if I had not indulged, to prove there was nothing in it, in thisreview, I should have missed the two or three dim elements of comfortthat still remained to me. I should not for instance have beenable toasseverate to my friend that I was certain--which was so muchto thegood--that _I_ at least had not betrayed myself. I should nothave beenprompted, by stress of need, by desperation of mind--I scarceknow whatto call it--to invoke such further aid to intelligence as mightspring

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from pushing my colleague fairly to the wall. She had told me,bit bybit, under pressure, a great deal; but a small shifty spot on thewrong

side of it all still sometimes brushed my brow like the wing of abat;and I remember how on this occasion--for the sleeping houseand theconcentration alike of our danger and our watch seemed tohelp--I feltthe importance of giving the last jerk to the curtain. "I don'tbelieve anything so horrible," I recollect saying; "no, let us putit

definitely, my dear, that I don't. But if I did, you know, there'sa thing I should require now, just without sparing you the leastbitmore--oh, not a scrap, come!--to get out of you. What was ityou had inmind when, in our distress, before Miles came back, over theletter fromhis school, you said, under my insistence, that you didn'tpretend for

him that he had not literally EVER been 'bad'? He has NOTliterally'ever,' in these weeks that I myself have lived with him and socloselywatched him; he has been an imperturbable little prodigy of delightful,lovable goodness. Therefore you might perfectly have madethe claim forhim if you had not, as it happened, seen an exception to take.What wasyour exception, and to what passage in your personalobservation of himdid you refer?"

It was a dreadfully austere inquiry, but levity was not our note,and,at any rate, before the gray dawn admonished us to separate Ihad gotmy answer. What my friend had had in mind proved to beimmensely to the

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purpose. It was neither more nor less than the circumstancethat fora period of several months Quint and the boy had beenperpetually

together. It was in fact the very appropriate truth that she hadventured to criticize the propriety, to hint at the incongruity, of so close an alliance, and even to go so far on the subject as afrankoverture to Miss Jessel. Miss Jessel had, with a most strangemanner,requested her to mind her business, and the good woman had,on this,directly approached little Miles. What she had said to him, since

Ipressed, was that SHE liked to see young gentlemen not forgettheirstation.

I pressed again, of course, at this. "You reminded him thatQuint wasonly a base menial?"

"As you might say! And it was his answer, for one thing, thatwas bad."

"And for another thing?" I waited. "He repeated your words toQuint?"

"No, not that. It's just what he WOULDN'T!" she could stillimpress uponme. "I was sure, at any rate," she added, "that he didn't. But hedeniedcertain occasions."

"What occasions?"

"When they had been about together quite as if Quint were histutor--anda very grand one--and Miss Jessel only for the little lady. Whenhe hadgone off with the fellow, I mean, and spent hours with him."

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"He then prevaricated about it--he said he hadn't?" Her assentwas clearenough to cause me to add in a moment: "I see. He lied."

"Oh!" Mrs. Grose mumbled. This was a suggestion that it didn'tmatter;which indeed she backed up by a further remark. "You see,after all,Miss Jessel didn't mind. She didn't forbid him."

I considered. "Did he put that to you as a justification?"

At this she dropped again. "No, he never spoke of it."

"Never mentioned her in connection with Quint?"

She saw, visibly flushing, where I was coming out. "Well, hedidn't showanything. He denied," she repeated; "he denied."

Lord, how I pressed her now! "So that you could see he knewwhat was

between the two wretches?"

"I don't know--I don't know!" the poor woman groaned.

"You do know, you dear thing," I replied; "only you haven't mydreadfulboldness of mind, and you keep back, out of timidity andmodesty anddelicacy, even the impression that, in the past, when you had,withoutmy aid, to flounder about in silence, most of all made youmiserable.But I shall get it out of you yet! There was something in the boythatsuggested to you," I continued, "that he covered and concealedtheirrelation."

"Oh, he couldn't prevent--"

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"Your learning the truth? I daresay! But, heavens," I fell, withvehemence, athinking, "what it shows that they must, to thatextent,have succeeded in making of him!"

"Ah, nothing that's not nice NOW!" Mrs. Grose lugubriouslypleaded.

"I don't wonder you looked queer," I persisted, "when Imentioned to youthe letter from his school!"

"I doubt if I looked as queer as you!" she retorted with homely

force."And if he was so bad then as that comes to, how is he such anangelnow?"

"Yes, indeed--and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how?Well,"I said in my torment, "you must put it to me again, but I shallnot be

able to tell you for some days. Only, put it to me again!" I criedin away that made my friend stare. "There are directions in which Imustnot for the present let myself go." Meanwhile I returned to herfirstexample--the one to which she had just previously referred--of the boy'shappy capacity for an occasional slip. "If Quint--on yourremonstranceat the time you speak of--was a base menial, one of the thingsMilessaid to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were another."Againher admission was so adequate that I continued: "And youforgave himthat?"

"Wouldn't YOU?"

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"Oh, yes!" And we exchanged there, in the stillness, a sound of theoddest amusement. Then I went on: "At all events, while hewas with the

man--"

"Miss Flora was with the woman. It suited them all!"

It suited me, too, I felt, only too well; by which I mean that itsuitedexactly the particularly deadly view I was in the very act of forbiddingmyself to entertain. But I so far succeeded in checking the

expressionof this view that I will throw, just here, no further light on it thanmay be offered by the mention of my final observation to Mrs.Grose."His having lied and been impudent are, I confess, lessengagingspecimens than I had hoped to have from you of the outbreakin him of the little natural man. Still," I mused, "They must do, for they

make mefeel more than ever that I must watch."

It made me blush, the next minute, to see in my friend's facehow muchmore unreservedly she had forgiven him than her anecdotestruck me aspresenting to my own tenderness an occasion for doing. Thiscame outwhen, at the schoolroom door, she quitted me. "Surely youdon't accuseHIM--"

"Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me? Ah,rememberthat, until further evidence, I now accuse nobody." Then, beforeshutting her out to go, by another passage, to her own place, "Imust

just wait," I wound up.

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IX

I waited and waited, and the days, as they elapsed, tooksomething frommy consternation. A very few of them, in fact, passing, inconstantsight of my pupils, without a fresh incident, sufficed to give togrievous fancies and even to odious memories a kind of brushof the

sponge. I have spoken of the surrender to their extraordinarychildishgrace as a thing I could actively cultivate, and it may beimagined if I neglected now to address myself to this source for whatever itwould yield. Stranger than I can express, certainly, was theeffort tostruggle against my new lights; it would doubtless have been,however,

a greater tension still had it not been so frequently successful. Iused to wonder how my little charges could help guessing that Ithoughtstrange things about them; and the circumstances that thesethings onlymade them more interesting was not by itself a direct aid tokeepingthem in the dark. I trembled lest they should see that theyWERE soimmensely more interesting. Putting things at the worst, at allevents,as in meditation I so often did, any clouding of their innocencecouldonly be--blameless and foredoomed as they were--a reason themore fortaking risks. There were moments when, by an irresistibleimpulse, Ifound myself catching them up and pressing them to my heart.As soon as

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I had done so I used to say to myself: "What will they think of that?Doesn't it betray too much?" It would have been easy to getinto a sad,

wild tangle about how much I might betray; but the realaccount, I feel,of the hours of peace that I could still enjoy was that theimmediatecharm of my companions was a beguilement still effective evenunder theshadow of the possibility that it was studied. For if it occurredto methat I might occasionally excite suspicion by the little outbreaks

of mysharper passion for them, so too I remember wondering if Imightn't seea queerness in the traceable increase of their owndemonstrations.

They were at this period extravagantly and preternaturally fondof me;which, after all, I could reflect, was no more than a graceful

responsein children perpetually bowed over and hugged. The homage of which theywere so lavish succeeded, in truth, for my nerves, quite as wellas if I never appeared to myself, as I may say, literally to catch themat apurpose in it. They had never, I think, wanted to do so manythings fortheir poor protectress; I mean--though they got their lessonsbetter andbetter, which was naturally what would please her most--in theway of diverting, entertaining, surprising her; reading her passages,tellingher stories, acting her charades, pouncing out at her, indisguises, asanimals and historical characters, and above all astonishing herby the

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"pieces" they had secretly got by heart and could interminablyrecite. Ishould never get to the bottom--were I to let myself go evennow--of the

prodigious private commentary, all under still more privatecorrection,with which, in these days, I overscored their full hours. Theyhad shownme from the first a facility for everything, a general facultywhich,taking a fresh start, achieved remarkable flights. They got theirlittletasks as if they loved them, and indulged, from the mere

exuberance of the gift, in the most unimposed little miracles of memory. Theynotonly popped out at me as tigers and as Romans, but asShakespeareans,astronomers, and navigators. This was so singularly the casethat it hadpresumably much to do with the fact as to which, at thepresent day,

I am at a loss for a different explanation: I allude to myunnaturalcomposure on the subject of another school for Miles. What Irememberis that I was content not, for the time, to open the question,and thatcontentment must have sprung from the sense of hisperpetually strikingshow of cleverness. He was too clever for a bad governess, foraparson's daughter, to spoil; and the strangest if not thebrightestthread in the pensive embroidery I just spoke of was theimpression Imight have got, if I had dared to work it out, that he was undersomeinfluence operating in his small intellectual life as a tremendousincitement.

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If it was easy to reflect, however, that such a boy couldpostponeschool, it was at least as marked that for such a boy to havebeen

"kicked out" by a schoolmaster was a mystification without end.Let meadd that in their company now--and I was careful almost neverto be outof it--I could follow no scent very far. We lived in a cloud of musicand love and success and private theatricals. The musicalsense in eachof the children was of the quickest, but the elder in especial

had amarvelous knack of catching and repeating. The schoolroompianobroke into all gruesome fancies; and when that failed therewereconfabulations in corners, with a sequel of one of them goingout inthe highest spirits in order to "come in" as something new. Ihad had

brothers myself, and it was no revelation to me that little girlscouldbe slavish idolaters of little boys. What surpassed everythingwas thatthere was a little boy in the world who could have for theinferior age,sex, and intelligence so fine a consideration. They wereextraordinarilyat one, and to say that they never either quarreled orcomplained isto make the note of praise coarse for their quality of sweetness.Sometimes, indeed, when I dropped into coarseness, I perhapscame acrosstraces of little understandings between them by which one of them shouldkeep me occupied while the other slipped away. There is anaive side,I suppose, in all diplomacy; but if my pupils practiced upon me,it was

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surely with the minimum of grossness. It was all in the otherquarterthat, after a lull, the grossness broke out.

I find that I really hang back; but I must take my plunge. Ingoing onwith the record of what was hideous at Bly, I not only challengethemost liberal faith--for which I little care; but--and this is anothermatter--I renew what I myself suffered, I again push my waythrough itto the end. There came suddenly an hour after which, as I lookback, the

affair seems to me to have been all pure suffering; but I have atleastreached the heart of it, and the straightest road out isdoubtless toadvance. One evening--with nothing to lead up or to prepare it--I feltthe cold touch of the impression that had breathed on me thenight of my arrival and which, much lighter then, as I have mentioned, I

shouldprobably have made little of in memory had my subsequentsojourn beenless agitated. I had not gone to bed; I sat reading by a couple of candles. There was a roomful of old books at Bly--last-centuryfiction,some of it, which, to the extent of a distinctly deprecatedrenown,but never to so much as that of a stray specimen, had reachedthesequestered home and appealed to the unavowed curiosity of my youth. Iremember that the book I had in my hand was Fielding'sAmelia; also thatI was wholly awake. I recall further both a general convictionthat itwas horribly late and a particular objection to looking at mywatch. Ifigure, finally, that the white curtain draping, in the fashion of those

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days, the head of Flora's little bed, shrouded, as I had assuredmyself long before, the perfection of childish rest. I recollect in shortthat,

though I was deeply interested in my author, I found myself, atthe turnof a page and with his spell all scattered, looking straight upfromhim and hard at the door of my room. There was a momentduring whichI listened, reminded of the faint sense I had had, the first night,of there being something undefinably astir in the house, and

noted the softbreath of the open casement just move the half-drawn blind. Then, withall the marks of a deliberation that must have seemedmagnificent hadthere been anyone to admire it, I laid down my book, rose tomy feet,and, taking a candle, went straight out of the room and, fromthe

passage, on which my light made little impression, noiselesslyclosedand locked the door.

I can say now neither what determined nor what guided me,but I wentstraight along the lobby, holding my candle high, till I camewithinsight of the tall window that presided over the great turn of thestaircase. At this point I precipitately found myself aware of threethings. They were practically simultaneous, yet they hadflashes of succession. My candle, under a bold flourish, went out, and Iperceived,by the uncovered window, that the yielding dusk of earliestmorningrendered it unnecessary. Without it, the next instant, I saw thatthere

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was someone on the stair. I speak of sequences, but I requiredno lapseof seconds to stiffen myself for a third encounter with Quint.

The

apparition had reached the landing halfway up and wastherefore on thespot nearest the window, where at sight of me, it stopped shortandfixed me exactly as it had fixed me from the tower and fromthe garden.He knew me as well as I knew him; and so, in the cold, fainttwilight,with a glimmer in the high glass and another on the polish of

theoak stair below, we faced each other in our common intensity.He wasabsolutely, on this occasion, a living, detestable, dangerouspresence.But that was not the wonder of wonders; I reserve thisdistinction forquite another circumstance: the circumstance that dread hadunmistakably

quitted me and that there was nothing in me there that didn'tmeet andmeasure him.

I had plenty of anguish after that extraordinary moment, but Ihad,thank God, no terror. And he knew I had not--I found myself atthe endof an instant magnificently aware of this. I felt, in a fierce rigorof confidence, that if I stood my ground a minute I should cease--forthe time, at least--to have him to reckon with; and during theminute,accordingly, the thing was as human and hideous as a realinterview:hideous just because it WAS human, as human as to have metalone, inthe small hours, in a sleeping house, some enemy, someadventurer,

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some criminal. It was the dead silence of our long gaze at suchclosequarters that gave the whole horror, huge as it was, its onlynote of

the unnatural. If I had met a murderer in such a place and atsuch anhour, we still at least would have spoken. Something wouldhave passed,in life, between us; if nothing had passed, one of us would havemoved.

The moment was so prolonged that it would have taken butlittle more tomake me doubt if even _I_ were in life. I can't express what

followed itsave by saying that the silence itself--which was indeed in amanneran attestation of my strength--became the element into which Isaw thefigure disappear; in which I definitely saw it turn as I mighthaveseen the low wretch to which it had once belonged turn onreceipt of an

order, and pass, with my eyes on the villainous back that nohunch couldhave more disfigured, straight down the staircase and into thedarknessin which the next bend was lost.

X

I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effectpresentlyof understanding that when my visitor had gone, he had gone:then Ireturned to my room. The foremost thing I saw there by thelight of thecandle I had left burning was that Flora's little bed was empty;and on

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this I caught my breath with all the terror that, five minutesbefore,I had been able to resist. I dashed at the place in which I hadleft her

lying and over which (for the small silk counterpane and thesheets weredisarranged) the white curtains had been deceivingly pulledforward;then my step, to my unutterable relief, produced an answeringsound: Iperceived an agitation of the window blind, and the child,ducking down,emerged rosily from the other side of it. She stood there in so

much of her candor and so little of her nightgown, with her pink barefeet andthe golden glow of her curls. She looked intensely grave, and Ihadnever had such a sense of losing an advantage acquired (thethrillof which had just been so prodigious) as on my consciousnessthat

she addressed me with a reproach. "You naughty: where HAVEyoubeen?"--instead of challenging her own irregularity I foundmyself arraigned and explaining. She herself explained, for thatmatter, withthe loveliest, eagerest simplicity. She had known suddenly, asshe laythere, that I was out of the room, and had jumped up to seewhat hadbecome of me. I had dropped, with the joy of her reappearance,backinto my chair--feeling then, and then only, a little faint; and shehadpattered straight over to me, thrown herself upon my knee,given herself to be held with the flame of the candle full in the wonderfullittleface that was still flushed with sleep. I remember closing myeyes an

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instant, yieldingly, consciously, as before the excess of somethingbeautiful that shone out of the blue of her own. "You werelooking for

me out of the window?" I said. "You thought I might be walkingin thegrounds?"

"Well, you know, I thought someone was"--she never blanchedas shesmiled out that at me.

Oh, how I looked at her now! "And did you see anyone?"

"Ah, NO!" she returned, almost with the full privilege of childishinconsequence, resentfully, though with a long sweetness inher littledrawl of the negative.

At that moment, in the state of my nerves, I absolutely believedshelied; and if I once more closed my eyes it was before the dazzle

of thethree or four possible ways in which I might take this up. One of these,for a moment, tempted me with such singular intensity that, towithstandit, I must have gripped my little girl with a spasm that,wonderfully,she submitted to without a cry or a sign of fright. Why notbreak outat her on the spot and have it all over?--give it to her straight inherlovely little lighted face? "You see, you see, you KNOW that youdo andthat you already quite suspect I believe it; therefore, why notfranklyconfess it to me, so that we may at least live with it togetherandlearn perhaps, in the strangeness of our fate, where we are andwhatit means?" This solicitation dropped, alas, as it came: if I could

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immediately have succumbed to it I might have spared myself--well,you'll see what. Instead of succumbing I sprang again to myfeet,

looked at her bed, and took a helpless middle way. "Why didyou pull thecurtain over the place to make me think you were still there?"

Flora luminously considered; after which, with her little divinesmile:"Because I don't like to frighten you!"

"But if I had, by your idea, gone out--?"

She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes tothe flameof the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at anyrate asimpersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. "Oh, but youknow," shequite adequately answered, "that you might come back, youdear, and that

you HAVE!" And after a little, when she had got into bed, I had,for along time, by almost sitting on her to hold her hand, to provethat Irecognized the pertinence of my return.

You may imagine the general complexion, from that moment,of my nights.I repeatedly sat up till I didn't know when; I selected momentswhen myroommate unmistakably slept, and, stealing out, took noiselessturns inthe passage and even pushed as far as to where I had last metQuint. ButI never met him there again; and I may as well say at once thatI on noother occasion saw him in the house. I just missed, on thestaircase,on the other hand, a different adventure. Looking down it fromthe top I

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once recognized the presence of a woman seated on one of thelower stepswith her back presented to me, her body half-bowed and herhead, in an

attitude of woe, in her hands. I had been there but an instant,however,when she vanished without looking round at me. I knew,nonetheless,exactly what dreadful face she had to show; and I wonderedwhether, if instead of being above I had been below, I should have had, forgoingup, the same nerve I had lately shown Quint. Well, there

continued tobe plenty of chance for nerve. On the eleventh night after mylatestencounter with that gentleman--they were all numbered now--Ihad analarm that perilously skirted it and that indeed, from theparticularquality of its unexpectedness, proved quite my sharpest shock.It was

precisely the first night during this series that, weary withwatching,I had felt that I might again without laxity lay myself down atmyold hour. I slept immediately and, as I afterward knew, till aboutoneo'clock; but when I woke it was to sit straight up, as completelyrousedas if a hand had shook me. I had left a light burning, but it wasnowout, and I felt an instant certainty that Flora had extinguishedit.

This brought me to my feet and straight, in the darkness, to herbed,which I found she had left. A glance at the window enlightenedmefurther, and the striking of a match completed the picture.

The child had again got up--this time blowing out the taper, andhad

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again, for some purpose of observation or response, squeezedin behindthe blind and was peering out into the night. That she nowsaw--as she

had not, I had satisfied myself, the previous time--was provedto me bythe fact that she was disturbed neither by my reillumination norby thehaste I made to get into slippers and into a wrap. Hidden,protected,absorbed, she evidently rested on the sill--the casementopenedforward--and gave herself up. There was a great still moon to

help her,and this fact had counted in my quick decision. She was face tofacewith the apparition we had met at the lake, and could nowcommunicatewith it as she had not then been able to do. What I, on my side,had tocare for was, without disturbing her, to reach, from the corridor,some

other window in the same quarter. I got to the door without herhearingme; I got out of it, closed it, and listened, from the other side,forsome sound from her. While I stood in the passage I had myeyes on herbrother's door, which was but ten steps off and which,indescribably,produced in me a renewal of the strange impulse that I latelyspokeof as my temptation. What if I should go straight in and marchto HISwindow?--what if, by risking to his boyish bewilderment arevelation of my motive, I should throw across the rest of the mystery thelong halterof my boldness?

This thought held me sufficiently to make me cross to histhreshold and

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pause again. I preternaturally listened; I figured to myself whatmightportentously be; I wondered if his bed were also empty and hetoo were

secretly at watch. It was a deep, soundless minute, at the endof whichmy impulse failed. He was quiet; he might be innocent; the riskwashideous; I turned away. There was a figure in the grounds--afigureprowling for a sight, the visitor with whom Flora was engaged;but itwas not the visitor most concerned with my boy. I hesitated

afresh, buton other grounds and only for a few seconds; then I had mademy choice.

There were empty rooms at Bly, and it was only a question of choosingthe right one. The right one suddenly presented itself to me asthelower one--though high above the gardens--in the solid cornerof the

house that I have spoken of as the old tower. This was a large,squarechamber, arranged with some state as a bedroom, theextravagant size of which made it so inconvenient that it had not for years, thoughkept byMrs. Grose in exemplary order, been occupied. I had oftenadmired it andI knew my way about in it; I had only, after just faltering at thefirstchill gloom of its disuse, to pass across it and unbolt as quietlyas Icould one of the shutters. Achieving this transit, I uncoveredtheglass without a sound and, applying my face to the pane, wasable, thedarkness without being much less than within, to see that Icommandedthe right direction. Then I saw something more. The moonmade the

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night extraordinarily penetrable and showed me on the lawn aperson,diminished by distance, who stood there motionless and as if fascinated,

looking up to where I had appeared--looking, that is, not somuchstraight at me as at something that was apparently above me.

There wasclearly another person above me--there was a person on thetower; butthe presence on the lawn was not in the least what I hadconceived andhad confidently hurried to meet. The presence on the lawn--I

felt sickas I made it out--was poor little Miles himself.

XI

It was not till late next day that I spoke to Mrs. Grose; the rigorwithwhich I kept my pupils in sight making it often difficult to meether privately, and the more as we each felt the importance of notprovoking--on the part of the servants quite as much as on thatof thechildren--any suspicion of a secret flurry or that of a discussionof mysteries. I drew a great security in this particular from hermeresmooth aspect. There was nothing in her fresh face to pass onto othersmy horrible confidences. She believed me, I was sure,absolutely: if shehadn't I don't know what would have become of me, for Icouldn't haveborne the business alone. But she was a magnificentmonument to the

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blessing of a want of imagination, and if she could see in ourlittlecharges nothing but their beauty and amiability, theirhappiness and

cleverness, she had no direct communication with the sourcesof mytrouble. If they had been at all visibly blighted or battered, shewoulddoubtless have grown, on tracing it back, haggard enough tomatch them;as matters stood, however, I could feel her, when she surveyedthem,with her large white arms folded and the habit of serenity in all

herlook, thank the Lord's mercy that if they were ruined the pieceswouldstill serve. Flights of fancy gave place, in her mind, to a steadyfireside glow, and I had already begun to perceive how, withthedevelopment of the conviction that--as time went on without apublicaccident--our young things could, after all, look out for

themselves,she addressed her greatest solicitude to the sad casepresented by theirinstructress. That, for myself, was a sound simplification: Icouldengage that, to the world, my face should tell no tales, but itwouldhave been, in the conditions, an immense added strain to findmyself anxious about hers.

At the hour I now speak of she had joined me, under pressure,on theterrace, where, with the lapse of the season, the afternoon sunwas nowagreeable; and we sat there together while, before us, at adistance,but within call if we wished, the children strolled to and fro inone

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of their most manageable moods. They moved slowly, inunison, below us,over the lawn, the boy, as they went, reading aloud from astorybook and

passing his arm round his sister to keep her quite in touch. Mrs.Grosewatched them with positive placidity; then I caught thesuppressedintellectual creak with which she conscientiously turned to takefrom mea view of the back of the tapestry. I had made her a receptacleof lurid things, but there was an odd recognition of my

superiority--myaccomplishments and my function--in her patience under mypain. Sheoffered her mind to my disclosures as, had I wished to mix awitch'sbroth and proposed it with assurance, she would have held outa largeclean saucepan. This had become thoroughly her attitude bythe time

that, in my recital of the events of the night, I reached the pointof what Miles had said to me when, after seeing him, at such amonstroushour, almost on the very spot where he happened now to be, Ihad gonedown to bring him in; choosing then, at the window, with aconcentratedneed of not alarming the house, rather that method than asignal moreresonant. I had left her meanwhile in little doubt of my smallhope of representing with success even to her actual sympathy mysense of thereal splendor of the little inspiration with which, after I had gothiminto the house, the boy met my final articulate challenge. Assoon as Iappeared in the moonlight on the terrace, he had come to meas straight

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as possible; on which I had taken his hand without a word andled him,through the dark spaces, up the staircase where Quint had sohungrily

hovered for him, along the lobby where I had listened andtrembled, andso to his forsaken room.

Not a sound, on the way, had passed between us, and I hadwondered--oh,HOW I had wondered!--if he were groping about in his littlemind forsomething plausible and not too grotesque. It would tax his

invention,certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment, acuriousthrill of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! Hecouldn'tplay any longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he getout of it?

There beat in me indeed, with the passionate throb of thisquestion an

equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce _I_ should. I wasconfronted atlast, as never yet, with all the risk attached even now tosounding myown horrid note. I remember in fact that as we pushed into hislittlechamber, where the bed had not been slept in at all and thewindow,uncovered to the moonlight, made the place so clear that therewas noneed of striking a match--I remember how I suddenly dropped,sank uponthe edge of the bed from the force of the idea that he mustknow how hereally, as they say, "had" me. He could do what he liked, withall hiscleverness to help him, so long as I should continue to defer totheold tradition of the criminality of those caretakers of the youngwho

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minister to superstitions and fears. He "had" me indeed, and ina cleftstick; for who would ever absolve me, who would consent that Ishould go

unhung, if, by the faintest tremor of an overture, I were the firsttointroduce into our perfect intercourse an element so dire? No,no: itwas useless to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it isscarcelyless so to attempt to suggest here, how, in our short, stiff brushinthe dark, he fairly shook me with admiration. I was of course

thoroughlykind and merciful; never, never yet had I placed on his littleshouldershands of such tenderness as those with which, while I restedagainst thebed, I held him there well under fire. I had no alternative but, informat least, to put it to him.

"You must tell me now--and all the truth. What did you go outfor? Whatwere you doing there?"

I can still see his wonderful smile, the whites of his beautifuleyes,and the uncovering of his little teeth shine to me in the dusk. "If Itell you why, will you understand?" My heart, at this, leapedinto mymouth. WOULD he tell me why? I found no sound on my lips topress it,and I was aware of replying only with a vague, repeated,grimacing nod.He was gentleness itself, and while I wagged my head at himhe stoodthere more than ever a little fairy prince. It was his brightnessindeedthat gave me a respite. Would it be so great if he were reallygoing to

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tell me? "Well," he said at last, "just exactly in order that youshoulddo this."

"Do what?"

"Think me--for a change--BAD!" I shall never forget thesweetness andgaiety with which he brought out the word, nor how, on top of it, hebent forward and kissed me. It was practically the end of everything.I met his kiss and I had to make, while I folded him for a minute

in myarms, the most stupendous effort not to cry. He had givenexactly theaccount of himself that permitted least of my going behind it,and itwas only with the effect of confirming my acceptance of it that,as Ipresently glanced about the room, I could say--

"Then you didn't undress at all?"

He fairly glittered in the gloom. "Not at all. I sat up and read."

"And when did you go down?"

"At midnight. When I'm bad I AM bad!"

"I see, I see--it's charming. But how could you be sure I wouldknowit?"

"Oh, I arranged that with Flora." His answers rang out with areadiness!"She was to get up and look out."

"Which is what she did do." It was I who fell into the trap!

"So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at, youalso

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looked--you saw."

"While you," I concurred, "caught your death in the night air!"

He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could affordradiantlyto assent. "How otherwise should I have been bad enough?" heasked.

Then, after another embrace, the incident and our interviewclosed on myrecognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke, hehadbeen able to draw upon.

XII

The particular impression I had received proved in the morninglight,

I repeat, not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose,though Ireinforced it with the mention of still another remark that hehad madebefore we separated. "It all lies in half a dozen words," I said toher,"words that really settle the matter. 'Think, you know, what IMIGHTdo!' He threw that off to show me how good he is. He knowsdown tothe ground what he 'might' do. That's what he gave them ataste of atschool."

"Lord, you do change!" cried my friend.

"I don't change--I simply make it out. The four, depend upon it,perpetually meet. If on either of these last nights you had beenwith

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either child, you would clearly have understood. The more I'vewatchedand waited the more I've felt that if there were nothing else tomake it

sure it would be made so by the systematic silence of each.NEVER, by aslip of the tongue, have they so much as alluded to either of their oldfriends, any more than Miles has alluded to his expulsion. Oh,yes,we may sit here and look at them, and they may show off to usthere totheir fill; but even while they pretend to be lost in their fairytale

they're steeped in their vision of the dead restored. He's notreadingto her," I declared; "they're talking of THEM--they're talkinghorrors!I go on, I know, as if I were crazy; and it's a wonder I'm not.WhatI've seen would have made YOU so; but it has only made memore lucid,made me get hold of still other things."

My lucidity must have seemed awful, but the charmingcreatures who werevictims of it, passing and repassing in their interlockedsweetness,gave my colleague something to hold on by; and I felt how tightshe heldas, without stirring in the breath of my passion, she coveredthem stillwith her eyes. "Of what other things have you got hold?"

"Why, of the very things that have delighted, fascinated, andyet, atbottom, as I now so strangely see, mystified and troubled me.

Their morethan earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural goodness. It's agame,"I went on; "it's a policy and a fraud!"

"On the part of little darlings--?"

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"As yet mere lovely babies? Yes, mad as that seems!" The veryact of bringing it out really helped me to trace it--follow it all up and

pieceit all together. "They haven't been good--they've only beenabsent. Ithas been easy to live with them, because they're simplyleading alife of their own. They're not mine--they're not ours. They're hisandthey're hers!"

"Quint's and that woman's?"

"Quint's and that woman's. They want to get to them."

Oh, how, at this, poor Mrs. Grose appeared to study them! "Butforwhat?"

"For the love of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, the pair

putinto them. And to ply them with that evil still, to keep up thework of demons, is what brings the others back."

"Laws!" said my friend under her breath. The exclamation washomely, butit revealed a real acceptance of my further proof of what, in thebadtime--for there had been a worse even than this!--must haveoccurred.

There could have been no such justification for me as the plainassentof her experience to whatever depth of depravity I foundcredible inour brace of scoundrels. It was in obvious submission of memory that shebrought out after a moment: "They WERE rascals! But what canthey nowdo?" she pursued.

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"Do?" I echoed so loud that Miles and Flora, as they passed attheirdistance, paused an instant in their walk and looked at us.

"Don'tthey do enough?" I demanded in a lower tone, while thechildren, havingsmiled and nodded and kissed hands to us, resumed theirexhibition. Wewere held by it a minute; then I answered: "They can destroythem!" Atthis my companion did turn, but the inquiry she launched was asilent

one, the effect of which was to make me more explicit. "Theydon't know,as yet, quite how--but they're trying hard. They're seen onlyacross,as it were, and beyond--in strange places and on high places,the top of towers, the roof of houses, the outside of windows, the furtheredgeof pools; but there's a deep design, on either side, to shorten

thedistance and overcome the obstacle; and the success of thetempters isonly a question of time. They've only to keep to theirsuggestions of danger."

"For the children to come?"

"And perish in the attempt!" Mrs. Grose slowly got up, and Iscrupulously added: "Unless, of course, we can prevent!"

Standing there before me while I kept my seat, she visiblyturned thingsover. "Their uncle must do the preventing. He must take themaway."

"And who's to make him?"

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She had been scanning the distance, but she now dropped onme a foolishface. "You, miss."

"By writing to him that his house is poisoned and his littlenephew andniece mad?"

"But if they ARE, miss?"

"And if I am myself, you mean? That's charming news to besent him by agoverness whose prime undertaking was to give him no worry."

Mrs. Grose considered, following the children again. "Yes, he dohateworry. That was the great reason--"

"Why those fiends took him in so long? No doubt, though hisindifferencemust have been awful. As I'm not a fiend, at any rate, Ishouldn't take

him in."

My companion, after an instant and for all answer, sat downagain andgrasped my arm. "Make him at any rate come to you."

I stared. "To ME?" I had a sudden fear of what she might do."'Him'?"

"He ought to BE here--he ought to help."

I quickly rose, and I think I must have shown her a queerer facethanever yet. "You see me asking him for a visit?" No, with her eyesonmy face she evidently couldn't. Instead of it even--as a womanreadsanother--she could see what I myself saw: his derision, hisamusement,

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his contempt for the breakdown of my resignation at being leftalone andfor the fine machinery I had set in motion to attract hisattention to

my slighted charms. She didn't know--no one knew--how proudI had beento serve him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless tookthemeasure, I think, of the warning I now gave her. "If you shouldso loseyour head as to appeal to him for me--"

She was really frightened. "Yes, miss?"

"I would leave, on the spot, both him and you."

XIII

It was all very well to join them, but speaking to them provedquite asmuch as ever an effort beyond my strength--offered, in closequarters,difficulties as insurmountable as before. This situationcontinued amonth, and with new aggravations and particular notes, thenote aboveall, sharper and sharper, of the small ironic consciousness onthe partof my pupils. It was not, I am as sure today as I was sure then,my mereinfernal imagination: it was absolutely traceable that they wereawareof my predicament and that this strange relation made, in amanner, fora long time, the air in which we moved. I don't mean that theyhad theirtongues in their cheeks or did anything vulgar, for that was notone

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of their dangers: I do mean, on the other hand, that theelement of theunnamed and untouched became, between us, greater thanany other, and

that so much avoidance could not have been so successfullyeffectedwithout a great deal of tacit arrangement. It was as if, atmoments, wewere perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which wemust stopshort, turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to beblind,closing with a little bang that made us look at each other--for,

likeall bangs, it was something louder than we had intended--thedoors wehad indiscreetly opened. All roads lead to Rome, and therewere timeswhen it might have struck us that almost every branch of studyorsubject of conversation skirted forbidden ground. Forbiddenground was

the question of the return of the dead in general and of whatever, inespecial, might survive, in memory, of the friends little childrenhadlost. There were days when I could have sworn that one of them had, witha small invisible nudge, said to the other: "She thinks she'll doitthis time--but she WON'T!" To "do it" would have been toindulge forinstance--and for once in a way--in some direct reference to theladywho had prepared them for my discipline. They had a delightfulendlessappetite for passages in my own history, to which I had againandagain treated them; they were in possession of everything thathadever happened to me, had had, with every circumstance thestory of my

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smallest adventures and of those of my brothers and sistersand of thecat and the dog at home, as well as many particulars of theeccentric

nature of my father, of the furniture and arrangement of ourhouse, andof the conversation of the old women of our village. There werethingsenough, taking one with another, to chatter about, if one wentvery fastand knew by instinct when to go round. They pulled with an artof theirown the strings of my invention and my memory; and nothing

else perhaps,when I thought of such occasions afterward, gave me so thesuspicionof being watched from under cover. It was in any case over MYlife, MYpast, and MY friends alone that we could take anything like ourease--astate of affairs that led them sometimes without the leastpertinence

to break out into sociable reminders. I was invited--with novisibleconnection--to repeat afresh Goody Gosling's celebrated mot ortoconfirm the details already supplied as to the cleverness of thevicarage pony.

It was partly at such junctures as these and partly at quitedifferentones that, with the turn my matters had now taken, mypredicament, as Ihave called it, grew most sensible. The fact that the dayspassed forme without another encounter ought, it would have appeared,to have donesomething toward soothing my nerves. Since the light brush,that secondnight on the upper landing, of the presence of a woman at thefoot of

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the stair, I had seen nothing, whether in or out of the house,that onehad better not have seen. There was many a corner roundwhich I expected

to come upon Quint, and many a situation that, in a merelysinister way,would have favored the appearance of Miss Jessel. The summerhad turned,the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly andhad blown outhalf our lights. The place, with its gray sky and witheredgarlands,its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater

afterthe performance--all strewn with crumpled playbills. There wereexactlystates of the air, conditions of sound and of stillness,unspeakableimpressions of the KIND of ministering moment, that broughtback to me,long enough to catch it, the feeling of the medium in which,that June

evening out of doors, I had had my first sight of Quint, and inwhich,too, at those other instants, I had, after seeing him through thewindow, looked for him in vain in the circle of shrubbery. Irecognizedthe signs, the portents--I recognized the moment, the spot. Buttheyremained unaccompanied and empty, and I continuedunmolested; if unmolested one could call a young woman whose sensibilityhad, in themost extraordinary fashion, not declined but deepened. I hadsaid in mytalk with Mrs. Grose on that horrid scene of Flora's by the lake--andhad perplexed her by so saying--that it would from thatmoment distressme much more to lose my power than to keep it. I had thenexpressed what

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was vividly in my mind: the truth that, whether the childrenreallysaw or not--since, that is, it was not yet definitely proved--Igreatly

preferred, as a safeguard, the fullness of my own exposure. Iwas readyto know the very worst that was to be known. What I had thenhad an uglyglimpse of was that my eyes might be sealed just while theirsweremost opened. Well, my eyes WERE sealed, it appeared, atpresent--aconsummation for which it seemed blasphemous not to thank

God. Therewas, alas, a difficulty about that: I would have thanked him withallmy soul had I not had in a proportionate measure thisconviction of thesecret of my pupils.

How can I retrace today the strange steps of my obsession? There were

times of our being together when I would have been ready toswear that,literally, in my presence, but with my direct sense of it closed,theyhad visitors who were known and were welcome. Then it wasthat, had Inot been deterred by the very chance that such an injury mightprovegreater than the injury to be averted, my exultation would havebrokenout. "They're here, they're here, you little wretches," I wouldhavecried, "and you can't deny it now!" The little wretches denied itwithall the added volume of their sociability and their tenderness, in

justthe crystal depths of which--like the flash of a fish in a stream--themockery of their advantage peeped up. The shock, in truth, hadsunk into

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me still deeper than I knew on the night when, looking out tosee eitherQuint or Miss Jessel under the stars, I had beheld the boy overwhose rest I watched and who had immediately brought in with

him--hadstraightway, there, turned it on me--the lovely upward look withwhich,from the battlements above me, the hideous apparition of Quint hadplayed. If it was a question of a scare, my discovery on thisoccasionhad scared me more than any other, and it was in the conditionof nerves

produced by it that I made my actual inductions. They harassedme sothat sometimes, at odd moments, I shut myself up audibly torehearse--itwas at once a fantastic relief and a renewed despair--themanner inwhich I might come to the point. I approached it from one sideand theother while, in my room, I flung myself about, but I always

broke downin the monstrous utterance of names. As they died away on mylips, Isaid to myself that I should indeed help them to representsomethinginfamous, if, by pronouncing them, I should violate as rare alittlecase of instinctive delicacy as any schoolroom, probably, hadeverknown. When I said to myself: "THEY have the manners to besilent, andyou, trusted as you are, the baseness to speak!" I felt myself crimsonand I covered my face with my hands. After these secretscenes Ichattered more than ever, going on volubly enough till one of ourprodigious, palpable hushes occurred--I can call them nothingelse--the

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strange, dizzy lift or swim (I try for terms!) into a stillness, apauseof all life, that had nothing to do with the more or less noisethat at

the moment we might be engaged in making and that I couldhear throughany deepened exhilaration or quickened recitation or louderstrum of thepiano. Then it was that the others, the outsiders, were there.

Thoughthey were not angels, they "passed," as the French say,causing me,while they stayed, to tremble with the fear of their addressing

to theiryounger victims some yet more infernal message or more vividimage thanthey had thought good enough for myself.

What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel ideathat,whatever I had seen, Miles and Flora saw MORE--things terribleand

unguessable and that sprang from dreadful passages of intercourse in thepast. Such things naturally left on the surface, for the time, achillwhich we vociferously denied that we felt; and we had, allthree, withrepetition, got into such splendid training that we went, eachtime,almost automatically, to mark the close of the incident, throughthevery same movements. It was striking of the children, at allevents,to kiss me inveterately with a kind of wild irrelevance and nevertofail--one or the other--of the precious question that had helpedusthrough many a peril. "When do you think he WILL come? Don'tyou thinkwe OUGHT to write?"--there was nothing like that inquiry, wefound by

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experience, for carrying off an awkwardness. "He" of coursewas theiruncle in Harley Street; and we lived in much profusion of theorythat he

might at any moment arrive to mingle in our circle. It wasimpossible tohave given less encouragement than he had done to such adoctrine, butif we had not had the doctrine to fall back upon we should havedeprived each other of some of our finest exhibitions. He neverwrote tothem--that may have been selfish, but it was a part of theflattery of

his trust of me; for the way in which a man pays his highesttribute toa woman is apt to be but by the more festal celebration of oneof thesacred laws of his comfort; and I held that I carried out thespirit of the pledge given not to appeal to him when I let my chargesunderstandthat their own letters were but charming literary exercises.

They weretoo beautiful to be posted; I kept them myself; I have them allto thishour. This was a rule indeed which only added to the satiriceffect of my being plied with the supposition that he might at anymoment be amongus. It was exactly as if my charges knew how almost moreawkward thananything else that might be for me. There appears to me,moreover, asI look back, no note in all this more extraordinary than themere factthat, in spite of my tension and of their triumph, I never lostpatiencewith them. Adorable they must in truth have been, I nowreflect, that Ididn't in these days hate them! Would exasperation, however,if relief

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had longer been postponed, finally have betrayed me? It littlematters,for relief arrived. I call it relief, though it was only the relief thata snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day

of suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with a rush.

XIV

Walking to church a certain Sunday morning, I had little Miles atmyside and his sister, in advance of us and at Mrs. Grose's, well insight. It was a crisp, clear day, the first of its order for sometime;the night had brought a touch of frost, and the autumn air,brightand sharp, made the church bells almost gay. It was an oddaccident of

thought that I should have happened at such a moment to beparticularlyand very gratefully struck with the obedience of my littlecharges. Whydid they never resent my inexorable, my perpetual society?Something orother had brought nearer home to me that I had all but pinnedthe boy tomy shawl and that, in the way our companions were marshaledbefore me,I might have appeared to provide against some danger of rebellion. Iwas like a gaoler with an eye to possible surprises and escapes.But allthis belonged--I mean their magnificent little surrender--just tothespecial array of the facts that were most abysmal. Turned outfor Sundayby his uncle's tailor, who had had a free hand and a notion of pretty waistcoats and of his grand little air, Miles's whole title to

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independence, the rights of his sex and situation, were sostamped uponhim that if he had suddenly struck for freedom I should havehad nothing

to say. I was by the strangest of chances wondering how Ishould meethim when the revolution unmistakably occurred. I call it arevolutionbecause I now see how, with the word he spoke, the curtainrose on thelast act of my dreadful drama, and the catastrophe wasprecipitated."Look here, my dear, you know," he charmingly said, "when in

the world,please, am I going back to school?"

Transcribed here the speech sounds harmless enough,particularlyas uttered in the sweet, high, casual pipe with which, at allinterlocutors, but above all at his eternal governess, he threwoff intonations as if he were tossing roses. There was something in

them that always made one "catch," and I caught, at any rate,now soeffectually that I stopped as short as if one of the trees of thepark had fallen across the road. There was something new, onthe spot,between us, and he was perfectly aware that I recognized it,though,to enable me to do so, he had no need to look a whit lesscandid andcharming than usual. I could feel in him how he already, frommy atfirst finding nothing to reply, perceived the advantage he hadgained. Iwas so slow to find anything that he had plenty of time, after aminute,to continue with his suggestive but inconclusive smile: "Youknow, mydear, that for a fellow to be with a lady ALWAYS--!" His "mydear" was

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constantly on his lips for me, and nothing could have expressedmore theexact shade of the sentiment with which I desired to inspire mypupils

than its fond familiarity. It was so respectfully easy.

But, oh, how I felt that at present I must pick my own phrases! Iremember that, to gain time, I tried to laugh, and I seemed tosee inthe beautiful face with which he watched me how ugly andqueer I looked."And always with the same lady?" I returned.

He neither blanched nor winked. The whole thing was virtuallyoutbetween us. "Ah, of course, she's a jolly, 'perfect' lady; but,afterall, I'm a fellow, don't you see? that's--well, getting on."

I lingered there with him an instant ever so kindly. "Yes, you'regetting on." Oh, but I felt helpless!

I have kept to this day the heartbreaking little idea of how heseemedto know that and to play with it. "And you can't say I've notbeenawfully good, can you?"

I laid my hand on his shoulder, for, though I felt how muchbetter itwould have been to walk on, I was not yet quite able. "No, Ican't saythat, Miles."

"Except just that one night, you know--!"

"That one night?" I couldn't look as straight as he.

"Why, when I went down--went out of the house."

"Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for."

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"You forget?"--he spoke with the sweet extravagance of childishreproach. "Why, it was to show you I could!"

"Oh, yes, you could."

"And I can again."

I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping my witsabout me. "Certainly. But you won't."

"No, not THAT again. It was nothing."

"It was nothing," I said. "But we must go on."

He resumed our walk with me, passing his hand into my arm."Then when AMI going back?"

I wore, in turning it over, my most responsible air. "Were youveryhappy at school?"

He just considered. "Oh, I'm happy enough anywhere!"

"Well, then," I quavered, "if you're just as happy here--!"

"Ah, but that isn't everything! Of course YOU know a lot--"

"But you hint that you know almost as much?" I risked as hepaused.

"Not half I want to!" Miles honestly professed. "But it isn't somuchthat."

"What is it, then?"

"Well--I want to see more life."

"I see; I see." We had arrived within sight of the church and of various

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persons, including several of the household of Bly, on their wayto itand clustered about the door to see us go in. I quickened ourstep;

I wanted to get there before the question between us openedup muchfurther; I reflected hungrily that, for more than an hour, hewould haveto be silent; and I thought with envy of the comparative dusk of the pewand of the almost spiritual help of the hassock on which I mightbendmy knees. I seemed literally to be running a race with some

confusionto which he was about to reduce me, but I felt that he had gotin firstwhen, before we had even entered the churchyard, he threwout--

"I want my own sort!"

It literally made me bound forward. "There are not many of

your ownsort, Miles!" I laughed. "Unless perhaps dear little Flora!"

"You really compare me to a baby girl?"

This found me singularly weak. "Don't you, then, LOVE oursweet Flora?"

"If I didn't--and you, too; if I didn't--!" he repeated as if retreatingfor a jump, yet leaving his thought so unfinished that, after wehadcome into the gate, another stop, which he imposed on me bythe pressureof his arm, had become inevitable. Mrs. Grose and Flora hadpassed intothe church, the other worshippers had followed, and we were,for theminute, alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, onthe path

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from the gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb.

"Yes, if you didn't--?"

He looked, while I waited, at the graves. "Well, you know what!"Buthe didn't move, and he presently produced something thatmade me dropstraight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest. "Doesmy unclethink what YOU think?"

I markedly rested. "How do you know what I think?"

"Ah, well, of course I don't; for it strikes me you never tell me.But Imean does HE know?"

"Know what, Miles?"

"Why, the way I'm going on."

I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry, noanswerthat would not involve something of a sacrifice of my employer.

Yet itappeared to me that we were all, at Bly, sufficiently sacrificedto makethat venial. "I don't think your uncle much cares."

Miles, on this, stood looking at me. "Then don't you think hecan bemade to?"

"In what way?"

"Why, by his coming down."

"But who'll get him to come down?"

"_I_ will!" the boy said with extraordinary brightness andemphasis. He

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gave me another look charged with that expression and thenmarched off alone into church.

XV

The business was practically settled from the moment I neverfollowedhim. It was a pitiful surrender to agitation, but my being aware

of thishad somehow no power to restore me. I only sat there on mytomb and readinto what my little friend had said to me the fullness of itsmeaning;by the time I had grasped the whole of which I had alsoembraced, forabsence, the pretext that I was ashamed to offer my pupils andthe rest

of the congregation such an example of delay. What I said tomyself above all was that Miles had got something out of me and thatthe proof of it, for him, would be just this awkward collapse. He had gotoutof me that there was something I was much afraid of and thathe shouldprobably be able to make use of my fear to gain, for his ownpurpose,more freedom. My fear was of having to deal with theintolerablequestion of the grounds of his dismissal from school, for thatwasreally but the question of the horrors gathered behind. That hisuncleshould arrive to treat with me of these things was a solutionthat,strictly speaking, I ought now to have desired to bring on; but Icould so little face the ugliness and the pain of it that I simply

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procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth. The boy, to mydeepdiscomposure, was immensely in the right, was in a position tosay

to me: "Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of thisinterruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me to leadwith youa life that's so unnatural for a boy." What was so unnatural fortheparticular boy I was concerned with was this sudden revelationof aconsciousness and a plan.

That was what really overcame me, what prevented my goingin. I walkedround the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected that I hadalready,with him, hurt myself beyond repair. Therefore I could patch upnothing,and it was too extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into thepew: he

would be so much more sure than ever to pass his arm intomine and makeme sit there for an hour in close, silent contact with hiscommentaryon our talk. For the first minute since his arrival I wanted to getawayfrom him. As I paused beneath the high east window andlistened to thesounds of worship, I was taken with an impulse that mightmaster me,I felt, completely should I give it the least encouragement. Imighteasily put an end to my predicament by getting awayaltogether. Herewas my chance; there was no one to stop me; I could give thewhole thingup--turn my back and retreat. It was only a question of hurryingagain,for a few preparations, to the house which the attendance atchurch of

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so many of the servants would practically have left unoccupied.No one,in short, could blame me if I should just drive desperately off.What

was it to get away if I got away only till dinner? That would beina couple of hours, at the end of which--I had the acuteprevision--mylittle pupils would play at innocent wonder about mynonappearance intheir train.

"What DID you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world,

to worry usso--and take our thoughts off, too, don't you know?--did youdesert usat the very door?" I couldn't meet such questions nor, as theyaskedthem, their false little lovely eyes; yet it was all so exactly whatIshould have to meet that, as the prospect grew sharp to me, Iat last

let myself go.

I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; Icamestraight out of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced mystepsthrough the park. It seemed to me that by the time I reachedthe houseI had made up my mind I would fly. The Sunday stillness both of theapproaches and of the interior, in which I met no one, fairlyexcitedme with a sense of opportunity. Were I to get off quickly, thisway, Ishould get off without a scene, without a word. My quicknesswould haveto be remarkable, however, and the question of a conveyancewas thegreat one to settle. Tormented, in the hall, with difficultiesand obstacles, I remember sinking down at the foot of the

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staircase--suddenly collapsing there on the lowest step andthen, with arevulsion, recalling that it was exactly where more than amonth before,

in the darkness of night and just so bowed with evil things, Ihadseen the specter of the most horrible of women. At this I wasableto straighten myself; I went the rest of the way up; I made, inmybewilderment, for the schoolroom, where there were objectsbelonging tome that I should have to take. But I opened the door to find

again, in aflash, my eyes unsealed. In the presence of what I saw I reeledstraightback upon my resistance.

Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a personwhom,without my previous experience, I should have taken at the firstblush

for some housemaid who might have stayed at home to lookafter the placeand who, availing herself of rare relief from observation and of theschoolroom table and my pens, ink, and paper, had appliedherself to theconsiderable effort of a letter to her sweetheart. There was aneffortin the way that, while her arms rested on the table, her handswithevident weariness supported her head; but at the moment Itook this inI had already become aware that, in spite of my entrance, herattitudestrangely persisted. Then it was--with the very act of itsannouncingitself--that her identity flared up in a change of posture. Sherose,not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable grandmelancholy

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of indifference and detachment, and, within a dozen feet of me,stoodthere as my vile predecessor. Dishonored and tragic, she wasall before

me; but even as I fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awfulimagepassed away. Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggardbeauty andher unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough toappear to saythat her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit athers.While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the extraordinary chill

of feeling that it was I who was the intruder. It was as a wildprotestagainst it that, actually addressing her--"You terrible, miserablewoman!"--I heard myself break into a sound that, by the opendoor, rangthrough the long passage and the empty house. She looked atme as if she heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared the air.

There wasnothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine and asense that Imust stay.

XVI

I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils wouldbe markedby a demonstration that I was freshly upset at having to takeintoaccount that they were dumb about my absence. Instead of gailydenouncing and caressing me, they made no allusion to myhaving failed

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them, and I was left, for the time, on perceiving that she toosaidnothing, to study Mrs. Grose's odd face. I did this to suchpurpose that

I made sure they had in some way bribed her to silence; asilence that,however, I would engage to break down on the first privateopportunity.

This opportunity came before tea: I secured five minutes withher in thehousekeeper's room, where, in the twilight, amid a smell of lately bakedbread, but with the place all swept and garnished, I found her

sittingin pained placidity before the fire. So I see her still, so I see herbest: facing the flame from her straight chair in the dusky,shiningroom, a large clean image of the "put away"--of drawers closedandlocked and rest without a remedy.

"Oh, yes, they asked me to say nothing; and to please them--so

long asthey were there--of course I promised. But what had happenedto you?"

"I only went with you for the walk," I said. "I had then to comeback tomeet a friend."

She showed her surprise. "A friend--YOU?"

"Oh, yes, I have a couple!" I laughed. "But did the children giveyou areason?"

"For not alluding to your leaving us? Yes; they said you wouldlike itbetter. Do you like it better?"

My face had made her rueful. "No, I like it worse!" But after aninstant

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I added: "Did they say why I should like it better?"

"No; Master Miles only said, 'We must do nothing but what shelikes!'"

"I wish indeed he would. And what did Flora say?"

"Miss Flora was too sweet. She said, 'Oh, of course, of course!'--and Isaid the same."

I thought a moment. "You were too sweet, too--I can hear youall. But

nonetheless, between Miles and me, it's now all out."

"All out?" My companion stared. "But what, miss?"

"Everything. It doesn't matter. I've made up my mind. I camehome, mydear," I went on, "for a talk with Miss Jessel."

I had by this time formed the habit of having Mrs. Grose literally

wellin hand in advance of my sounding that note; so that even now,asshe bravely blinked under the signal of my word, I could keephercomparatively firm. "A talk! Do you mean she spoke?"

"It came to that. I found her, on my return, in the schoolroom."

"And what did she say?" I can hear the good woman still, andthe candorof her stupefaction.

"That she suffers the torments--!"

It was this, of a truth, that made her, as she filled out mypicture,gape. "Do you mean," she faltered, "--of the lost?"

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"Of the lost. Of the damned. And that's why, to share them-" Ifalteredmyself with the horror of it.

But my companion, with less imagination, kept me up. "Toshare them--?"

"She wants Flora." Mrs. Grose might, as I gave it to her, fairlyhavefallen away from me had I not been prepared. I still held herthere, toshow I was. "As I've told you, however, it doesn't matter."

"Because you've made up your mind? But to what?"

"To everything."

"And what do you call 'everything'?"

"Why, sending for their uncle."

"Oh, miss, in pity do," my friend broke out. "ah, but I will, I

WILL! Isee it's the only way. What's 'out,' as I told you, with Miles isthatif he thinks I'm afraid to--and has ideas of what he gains bythat--heshall see he's mistaken. Yes, yes; his uncle shall have it herefrom meon the spot (and before the boy himself, if necessary) that if I'mto bereproached with having done nothing again about moreschool--"

"Yes, miss--" my companion pressed me.

"Well, there's that awful reason."

There were now clearly so many of these for my poor colleaguethat shewas excusable for being vague. "But--a--which?"

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"Why, the letter from his old place."

"You'll show it to the master?"

"I ought to have done so on the instant."

"Oh, no!" said Mrs. Grose with decision.

"I'll put it before him," I went on inexorably, "that I can'tundertaketo work the question on behalf of a child who has beenexpelled--"

"For we've never in the least known what!" Mrs. Grosedeclared.

"For wickedness. For what else--when he's so clever andbeautiful andperfect? Is he stupid? Is he untidy? Is he infirm? Is he ill-natured?He's exquisite--so it can be only THAT; and that would open upthe whole

thing. After all," I said, "it's their uncle's fault. If he left heresuch people--!"

"He didn't really in the least know them. The fault's mine." Shehadturned quite pale.

"Well, you shan't suffer," I answered.

"The children shan't!" she emphatically returned.

I was silent awhile; we looked at each other. "Then what am I totellhim?"

"You needn't tell him anything. _I_'ll tell him."

I measured this. "Do you mean you'll write--?" Rememberingshe couldn't,I caught myself up. "How do you communicate?"

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"I tell the bailiff. HE writes."

"And should you like him to write our story?"

My question had a sarcastic force that I had not fully intended,andit made her, after a moment, inconsequently break down. Thetears wereagain in her eyes. "Ah, miss, YOU write!"

"Well--tonight," I at last answered; and on this we separated.

XVII

I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. Theweather hadchanged back, a great wind was abroad, and beneath the lamp,

in my room,with Flora at peace beside me, I sat for a long time before ablanksheet of paper and listened to the lash of the rain and thebatter of the gusts. Finally I went out, taking a candle; I crossed thepassageand listened a minute at Miles's door. What, under my endlessobsession,I had been impelled to listen for was some betrayal of his notbeing atrest, and I presently caught one, but not in the form I hadexpected.His voice tinkled out. "I say, you there--come in." It was a gaietyinthe gloom!

I went in with my light and found him, in bed, very wide awake,but very

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much at his ease. "Well, what are YOU up to?" he asked with agrace of sociability in which it occurred to me that Mrs. Grose, had shebeen

present, might have looked in vain for proof that anything was"out."

I stood over him with my candle. "How did you know I wasthere?"

"Why, of course I heard you. Did you fancy you made no noise? You'relike a troop of cavalry!" he beautifully laughed.

"Then you weren't asleep?"

"Not much! I lie awake and think."

I had put my candle, designedly, a short way off, and then, ashe heldout his friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of hisbed.

"What is it," I asked, "that you think of?"

"What in the world, my dear, but YOU?"

"Ah, the pride I take in your appreciation doesn't insist on that!I hadso far rather you slept."

"Well, I think also, you know, of this queer business of ours."

I marked the coolness of his firm little hand. "Of what queerbusiness,Miles?"

"Why, the way you bring me up. And all the rest!"

I fairly held my breath a minute, and even from my glimmeringtaperthere was light enough to show how he smiled up at me fromhis pillow.

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"What do you mean by all the rest?"

"Oh, you know, you know!"

I could say nothing for a minute, though I felt, as I held his handandour eyes continued to meet, that my silence had all the air of admittinghis charge and that nothing in the whole world of reality wasperhaps atthat moment so fabulous as our actual relation. "Certainly youshall goback to school," I said, "if it be that that troubles you. But not to

the old place--we must find another, a better. How could I knowit didtrouble you, this question, when you never told me so, neverspoke of itat all?" His clear, listening face, framed in its smooth whiteness,madehim for the minute as appealing as some wistful patient in achildren'shospital; and I would have given, as the resemblance came to

me, all Ipossessed on earth really to be the nurse or the sister of charity whomight have helped to cure him. Well, even as it was, I perhapsmighthelp! "Do you know you've never said a word to me about yourschool--Imean the old one; never mentioned it in any way?"

He seemed to wonder; he smiled with the same loveliness. Buthe clearlygained time; he waited, he called for guidance. "Haven't I?" Itwasn'tfor ME to help him--it was for the thing I had met!

Something in his tone and the expression of his face, as I gotthis fromhim, set my heart aching with such a pang as it had never yetknown;

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so unutterably touching was it to see his little brain puzzled andhislittle resources taxed to play, under the spell laid on him, a partof innocence and consistency. "No, never--from the hour you

came back. You've never mentioned to me one of your masters, one of yourcomrades,nor the least little thing that ever happened to you at school.Never,little Miles--no, never--have you given me an inkling of anythingthatMAY have happened there. Therefore you can fancy how muchI'm in the

dark. Until you came out, that way, this morning, you had,since thefirst hour I saw you, scarce even made a reference to anythingin yourprevious life. You seemed so perfectly to accept the present." Itwasextraordinary how my absolute conviction of his secretprecocity (orwhatever I might call the poison of an influence that I dared but

half to phrase) made him, in spite of the faint breath of his inwardtrouble,appear as accessible as an older person--imposed him almostas anintellectual equal. "I thought you wanted to go on as you are."

It struck me that at this he just faintly colored. He gave, at anyrate,like a convalescent slightly fatigued, a languid shake of hishead. "Idon't--I don't. I want to get away."

"You're tired of Bly?"

"Oh, no, I like Bly."

"Well, then--?"

"Oh, YOU know what a boy wants!"

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I felt that I didn't know so well as Miles, and I took temporaryrefuge."You want to go to your uncle?"

Again, at this, with his sweet ironic face, he made a movementon thepillow. "Ah, you can't get off with that!"

I was silent a little, and it was I, now, I think, who changedcolor."My dear, I don't want to get off!"

"You can't, even if you do. You can't, you can't!"--he laybeautifullystaring. "My uncle must come down, and you must completelysettlethings."

"If we do," I returned with some spirit, "you may be sure it willbe totake you quite away."

"Well, don't you understand that that's exactly what I'mworking for?

You'll have to tell him--about the way you've let it all drop:you'llhave to tell him a tremendous lot!"

The exultation with which he uttered this helped me somehow,for theinstant, to meet him rather more. "And how much will YOU,Miles, have totell him? There are things he'll ask you!"

He turned it over. "Very likely. But what things?"

"The things you've never told me. To make up his mind what todo withyou. He can't send you back--"

"Oh, I don't want to go back!" he broke in. "I want a new field."

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He said it with admirable serenity, with positive unimpeachablegaiety; and doubtless it was that very note that most evokedfor me the

poignancy, the unnatural childish tragedy, of his probablereappearanceat the end of three months with all this bravado and still moredishonor. It overwhelmed me now that I should never be able tobearthat, and it made me let myself go. I threw myself upon himand in thetenderness of my pity I embraced him. "Dear little Miles, dearlittle

Miles--!"

My face was close to his, and he let me kiss him, simply takingit withindulgent good humor. "Well, old lady?"

"Is there nothing--nothing at all that you want to tell me?"

He turned off a little, facing round toward the wall and holding

up hishand to look at as one had seen sick children look. "I've toldyou--Itold you this morning."

Oh, I was sorry for him! "That you just want me not to worryyou?"

He looked round at me now, as if in recognition of myunderstanding him;then ever so gently, "To let me alone," he replied.

There was even a singular little dignity in it, something thatmade merelease him, yet, when I had slowly risen, linger beside him.God knowsI never wished to harass him, but I felt that merely, at this, toturnmy back on him was to abandon or, to put it more truly, to losehim.

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"I've just begun a letter to your uncle," I said.

"Well, then, finish it!"

I waited a minute. "What happened before?"

He gazed up at me again. "Before what?"

"Before you came back. And before you went away."

For some time he was silent, but he continued to meet myeyes. "Whathappened?"

It made me, the sound of the words, in which it seemed to methatI caught for the very first time a small faint quaver of consentingconsciousness--it made me drop on my knees beside the bedand seizeonce more the chance of possessing him. "Dear little Miles,dear little

Miles, if you KNEW how I want to help you! It's only that, it'snothingbut that, and I'd rather die than give you a pain or do you awrong--I'drather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear little Miles"--oh, Ibrought itout now even if I SHOULD go too far--"I just want you to helpme to saveyou!" But I knew in a moment after this that I had gone too far.

Theanswer to my appeal was instantaneous, but it came in theform of anextraordinary blast and chill, a gust of frozen air, and a shake of theroom as great as if, in the wild wind, the casement had crashedin. Theboy gave a loud, high shriek, which, lost in the rest of the shockof sound, might have seemed, indistinctly, though I was so closeto him,

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a note either of jubilation or of terror. I jumped to my feet againandwas conscious of darkness. So for a moment we remained,while I stared

about me and saw that the drawn curtains were unstirred andthe windowtight. "Why, the candle's out!" I then cried.

"It was I who blew it, dear!" said Miles.

XVIII

The next day, after lessons, Mrs. Grose found a moment to sayto mequietly: "Have you written, miss?"

"Yes--I've written." But I didn't add--for the hour--that my letter,sealed and directed, was still in my pocket. There would be

time enoughto send it before the messenger should go to the village.Meanwhilethere had been, on the part of my pupils, no more brilliant,moreexemplary morning. It was exactly as if they had both had atheart togloss over any recent little friction. They performed the dizziestfeatsof arithmetic, soaring quite out of MY feeble range, andperpetrated,in higher spirits than ever, geographical and historical jokes. Itwasconspicuous of course in Miles in particular that he appeared towish toshow how easily he could let me down. This child, to mymemory, reallylives in a setting of beauty and misery that no words cantranslate;

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there was a distinction all his own in every impulse he revealed;neverwas a small natural creature, to the uninitiated eye allfrankness and

freedom, a more ingenious, a more extraordinary littlegentleman. I hadperpetually to guard against the wonder of contemplation intowhich myinitiated view betrayed me; to check the irrelevant gaze anddiscouragedsigh in which I constantly both attacked and renounced theenigma of what such a little gentleman could have done that deserved a

penalty.Say that, by the dark prodigy I knew, the imagination of all evilHADbeen opened up to him: all the justice within me ached for theproof that it could ever have flowered into an act.

He had never, at any rate, been such a little gentleman aswhen, after

our early dinner on this dreadful day, he came round to me andasked if I shouldn't like him, for half an hour, to play to me. Davidplayingto Saul could never have shown a finer sense of the occasion. Itwasliterally a charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, andquitetantamount to his saying outright: "The true knights we love toreadabout never push an advantage too far. I know what you meannow: youmean that--to be let alone yourself and not followed up--you'llcease toworry and spy upon me, won't keep me so close to you, will letme goand come. Well, I 'come,' you see--but I don't go! There'll beplenty of time for that. I do really delight in your society, and I only wantto

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show you that I contended for a principle." It may be imaginedwhether Iresisted this appeal or failed to accompany him again, hand inhand, to

the schoolroom. He sat down at the old piano and played as hehad neverplayed; and if there are those who think he had better havebeen kickinga football I can only say that I wholly agree with them. For attheend of a time that under his influence I had quite ceased tomeasure, Istarted up with a strange sense of having literally slept at my

post. Itwas after luncheon, and by the schoolroom fire, and yet Ihadn'treally, in the least, slept: I had only done something muchworse--I hadforgotten. Where, all this time, was Flora? When I put thequestion toMiles, he played on a minute before answering and then couldonly say:

"Why, my dear, how do _I_ know?"--breaking moreover into ahappy laughwhich, immediately after, as if it were a vocal accompaniment,heprolonged into incoherent, extravagant song.

I went straight to my room, but his sister was not there; then,beforegoing downstairs, I looked into several others. As she wasnowhereabout she would surely be with Mrs. Grose, whom, in thecomfort of thattheory, I accordingly proceeded in quest of. I found her where Ihadfound her the evening before, but she met my quick challengewith blank,scared ignorance. She had only supposed that, after the repast,I hadcarried off both the children; as to which she was quite in herright,

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for it was the very first time I had allowed the little girl out of mysight without some special provision. Of course now indeed shemight be

with the maids, so that the immediate thing was to look for herwithoutan air of alarm. This we promptly arranged between us; butwhen, tenminutes later and in pursuance of our arrangement, we met inthe hall,it was only to report on either side that after guarded inquirieswehad altogether failed to trace her. For a minute there, apart

fromobservation, we exchanged mute alarms, and I could feel withwhat highinterest my friend returned me all those I had from the firstgiven her.

"She'll be above," she presently said--"in one of the rooms youhaven'tsearched."

"No; she's at a distance." I had made up my mind. "She hasgone out."

Mrs. Grose stared. "Without a hat?"

I naturally also looked volumes. "Isn't that woman alwayswithout one?"

"She's with HER?"

"She's with HER!" I declared. "We must find them."

My hand was on my friend's arm, but she failed for themoment,confronted with such an account of the matter, to respond tomypressure. She communed, on the contrary, on the spot, withheruneasiness. "And where's Master Miles?"

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"Oh, HE'S with Quint. They're in the schoolroom."

"Lord, miss!" My view, I was myself aware--and therefore I

suppose mytone--had never yet reached so calm an assurance.

"The trick's played," I went on; "they've successfully workedtheirplan. He found the most divine little way to keep me quiet whileshewent off."

"'Divine'?" Mrs. Grose bewilderedly echoed.

"Infernal, then!" I almost cheerfully rejoined. "He has providedforhimself as well. But come!"

She had helplessly gloomed at the upper regions. "You leavehim--?"

"So long with Quint? Yes--I don't mind that now."

She always ended, at these moments, by getting possession of my hand,and in this manner she could at present still stay me. But aftergaspingan instant at my sudden resignation, "Because of your letter?"sheeagerly brought out.

I quickly, by way of answer, felt for my letter, drew it forth, helditup, and then, freeing myself, went and laid it on the great halltable."Luke will take it," I said as I came back. I reached the housedoor andopened it; I was already on the steps.

My companion still demurred: the storm of the night and theearly

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morning had dropped, but the afternoon was damp and gray. Icame down tothe drive while she stood in the doorway. "You go with nothingon?"

"What do I care when the child has nothing? I can't wait todress," Icried, "and if you must do so, I leave you. Try meanwhile,yourself,upstairs."

"With THEM?" Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me!

XIX

We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and Idaresayrightly called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a

sheetof water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveledeyes. Myacquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool of Bly, at allevents on the few occasions of my consenting, under theprotection of my pupils, to affront its surface in the old flat-bottomed boatmooredthere for our use, had impressed me both with its extent and itsagitation. The usual place of embarkation was half a mile fromthehouse, but I had an intimate conviction that, wherever Floramightbe, she was not near home. She had not given me the slip forany smalladventure, and, since the day of the very great one that I hadsharedwith her by the pond, I had been aware, in our walks, of thequarter to

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which she most inclined. This was why I had now given to Mrs.Grose'ssteps so marked a direction--a direction that made her, whenshe

perceived it, oppose a resistance that showed me she wasfreshlymystified. "You're going to the water, Miss?--you think she'sIN--?"

"She may be, though the depth is, I believe, nowhere verygreat. Butwhat I judge most likely is that she's on the spot from which,the other

day, we saw together what I told you."

"When she pretended not to see--?"

"With that astounding self-possession? I've always been sureshe wantedto go back alone. And now her brother has managed it for her."

Mrs. Grose still stood where she had stopped. "You suppose

they really TALK of them?"

"I could meet this with a confidence! They say things that, if weheardthem, would simply appall us."

"And if she IS there--"

"Yes?"

"Then Miss Jessel is?"

"Beyond a doubt. You shall see."

"Oh, thank you!" my friend cried, planted so firm that, taking itin, Iwent straight on without her. By the time I reached the pool,however,

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she was close behind me, and I knew that, whatever, to herapprehension,might befall me, the exposure of my society struck her as herleast

danger. She exhaled a moan of relief as we at last came insight of thegreater part of the water without a sight of the child. There wasnotrace of Flora on that nearer side of the bank where myobservation of her had been most startling, and none on the opposite edge,where, savefor a margin of some twenty yards, a thick copse came down to

the water. The pond, oblong in shape, had a width so scant compared toits lengththat, with its ends out of view, it might have been taken for ascantriver. We looked at the empty expanse, and then I felt thesuggestionof my friend's eyes. I knew what she meant and I replied with anegative

headshake.

"No, no; wait! She has taken the boat."

My companion stared at the vacant mooring place and thenagain acrossthe lake. "Then where is it?"

"Our not seeing it is the strongest of proofs. She has used it togoover, and then has managed to hide it."

"All alone--that child?"

"She's not alone, and at such times she's not a child: she's anold,old woman." I scanned all the visible shore while Mrs. Grosetook again,into the queer element I offered her, one of her plunges of submission;

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then I pointed out that the boat might perfectly be in a smallrefugeformed by one of the recesses of the pool, an indentationmasked, for

the hither side, by a projection of the bank and by a clump of treesgrowing close to the water.

"But if the boat's there, where on earth's SHE?" my colleagueanxiouslyasked.

"That's exactly what we must learn." And I started to walk

further.

"By going all the way round?"

"Certainly, far as it is. It will take us but ten minutes, but it'sfar enough to have made the child prefer not to walk. She wentstraightover."

"Laws!" cried my friend again; the chain of my logic was evertoomuch for her. It dragged her at my heels even now, and whenwe had gothalfway round--a devious, tiresome process, on ground muchbroken and bya path choked with overgrowth--I paused to give her breath. Isustainedher with a grateful arm, assuring her that she might hugelyhelp me; andthis started us afresh, so that in the course of but few minutesmore wereached a point from which we found the boat to be where Ihad supposedit. It had been intentionally left as much as possible out of sightandwas tied to one of the stakes of a fence that came, just there,down tothe brink and that had been an assistance to disembarking. Irecognized,

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as I looked at the pair of short, thick oars, quite safely drawnup, theprodigious character of the feat for a little girl; but I had lived,by

this time, too long among wonders and had panted to too manyliveliermeasures. There was a gate in the fence, through which wepassed, andthat brought us, after a trifling interval, more into the open.

Then,"There she is!" we both exclaimed at once.

Flora, a short way off, stood before us on the grass and smiled

as if her performance was now complete. The next thing she did,however, wasto stoop straight down and pluck--quite as if it were all she wastherefor--a big, ugly spray of withered fern. I instantly became sureshehad just come out of the copse. She waited for us, not herself taking a

step, and I was conscious of the rare solemnity with which wepresentlyapproached her. She smiled and smiled, and we met; but it wasall donein a silence by this time flagrantly ominous. Mrs. Grose was thefirstto break the spell: she threw herself on her knees and, drawingthechild to her breast, clasped in a long embrace the little tender,yielding body. While this dumb convulsion lasted I could onlywatchit--which I did the more intently when I saw Flora's face peep atmeover our companion's shoulder. It was serious now--the flickerhad leftit; but it strengthened the pang with which I at that momentenvied Mrs.Grose the simplicity of HER relation. Still, all this while, nothingmore passed between us save that Flora had let her foolish fernagain

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drop to the ground. What she and I had virtually said to eachother wasthat pretexts were useless now. When Mrs. Grose finally got upshe kept

the child's hand, so that the two were still before me; and thesingularreticence of our communion was even more marked in thefrank look shelaunched me. "I'll be hanged," it said, "if _I_'ll speak!"

It was Flora who, gazing all over me in candid wonder, was thefirst.She was struck with our bareheaded aspect. "Why, where are

your things?"

"Where yours are, my dear!" I promptly returned.

She had already got back her gaiety, and appeared to take thisas ananswer quite sufficient. "And where's Miles?" she went on.

There was something in the small valor of it that quite finished

me:these three words from her were, in a flash like the glitter of adrawnblade, the jostle of the cup that my hand, for weeks and weeks,hadheld high and full to the brim that now, even before speaking, Ifeltoverflow in a deluge. "I'll tell you if you'll tell ME--" I heardmyself say, then heard the tremor in which it broke.

"Well, what?"

Mrs. Grose's suspense blazed at me, but it was too late now,and Ibrought the thing out handsomely. "Where, my pet, is Miss

Jessel?"

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XX

Just as in the churchyard with Miles, the whole thing was uponus. Muchas I had made of the fact that this name had never once,between us,been sounded, the quick, smitten glare with which the child'sface nowreceived it fairly likened my breach of the silence to the smashof apane of glass. It added to the interposing cry, as if to stay the

blow,that Mrs. Grose, at the same instant, uttered over my violence--theshriek of a creature scared, or rather wounded, which, in turn,within afew seconds, was completed by a gasp of my own. I seized mycolleague'sarm. "She's there, she's there!"

Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as shehadstood the other time, and I remember, strangely, as the firstfeelingnow produced in me, my thrill of joy at having brought on aproof. Shewas there, and I was justified; she was there, and I was neithercruelnor mad. She was there for poor scared Mrs. Grose, but shewas theremost for Flora; and no moment of my monstrous time wasperhaps soextraordinary as that in which I consciously threw out to her--withthe sense that, pale and ravenous demon as she was, shewould catch andunderstand it--an inarticulate message of gratitude. She roseerect onthe spot my friend and I had lately quitted, and there was not,in all

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the long reach of her desire, an inch of her evil that fell short. Thisfirst vividness of vision and emotion were things of a fewseconds,

during which Mrs. Grose's dazed blink across to where I pointedstruckme as a sovereign sign that she too at last saw, just as itcarried myown eyes precipitately to the child. The revelation then of themannerin which Flora was affected startled me, in truth, far more thanitwould have done to find her also merely agitated, for direct

dismaywas of course not what I had expected. Prepared and on herguard as ourpursuit had actually made her, she would repress everybetrayal; and Iwas therefore shaken, on the spot, by my first glimpse of theparticularone for which I had not allowed. To see her, without aconvulsion of

her small pink face, not even feign to glance in the direction of theprodigy I announced, but only, instead of that, turn at ME anexpressionof hard, still gravity, an expression absolutely new andunprecedentedand that appeared to read and accuse and judge me--this was astrokethat somehow converted the little girl herself into the verypresencethat could make me quail. I quailed even though my certitudethatshe thoroughly saw was never greater than at that instant, andin theimmediate need to defend myself I called it passionately towitness."She's there, you little unhappy thing--there, there, THERE, andyou seeher as well as you see me!" I had said shortly before to Mrs.Grose

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that she was not at these times a child, but an old, old woman,and thatdescription of her could not have been more strikinglyconfirmed than in

the way in which, for all answer to this, she simply showed me,withouta concession, an admission, of her eyes, a countenance of deeper anddeeper, of indeed suddenly quite fixed, reprobation. I was bythistime--if I can put the whole thing at all together--more appalledatwhat I may properly call her manner than at anything else,

though it wassimultaneously with this that I became aware of having Mrs.Grosealso, and very formidably, to reckon with. My elder companion,the nextmoment, at any rate, blotted out everything but her ownflushed face andher loud, shocked protest, a burst of high disapproval. "What adreadful

turn, to be sure, miss! Where on earth do you see anything?"

I could only grasp her more quickly yet, for even while shespoke thehideous plain presence stood undimmed and undaunted. It hadalreadylasted a minute, and it lasted while I continued, seizing mycolleague,quite thrusting her at it and presenting her to it, to insist withmypointing hand. "You don't see her exactly as WE see?--youmean to sayyou don't now--NOW? She's as big as a blazing fire! Only look,dearestwoman, LOOK--!" She looked, even as I did, and gave me, withher deepgroan of negation, repulsion, compassion--the mixture with herpity of her relief at her exemption--a sense, touching to me even then,that she

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would have backed me up if she could. I might well haveneeded that, forwith this hard blow of the proof that her eyes were hopelesslysealed

I felt my own situation horribly crumble, I felt--I saw--my lividpredecessor press, from her position, on my defeat, and I wasconscious,more than all, of what I should have from this instant to dealwith inthe astounding little attitude of Flora. Into this attitude Mrs.Groseimmediately and violently entered, breaking, even while therepierced

through my sense of ruin a prodigious private triumph, intobreathlessreassurance.

"She isn't there, little lady, and nobody's there--and you neverseenothing, my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel--when poor Miss

Jessel'sdead and buried? WE know, don't we, love?"--and she

appealed, blunderingin, to the child. "It's all a mere mistake and a worry and a joke--andwe'll go home as fast as we can!"

Our companion, on this, had responded with a strange, quickprimness of propriety, and they were again, with Mrs. Grose on her feet,united, asit were, in pained opposition to me. Flora continued to fix mewithher small mask of reprobation, and even at that minute Iprayed God toforgive me for seeming to see that, as she stood there holdingtightto our friend's dress, her incomparable childish beauty hadsuddenlyfailed, had quite vanished. I've said it already--she was literally,she was hideously, hard; she had turned common and almostugly. "I don't

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know what you mean. I see nobody. I see nothing. I neverHAVE. I thinkyou're cruel. I don't like you!" Then, after this deliverance,which

might have been that of a vulgarly pert little girl in the street,shehugged Mrs. Grose more closely and buried in her skirts thedreadfullittle face. In this position she produced an almost furious wail."Takeme away, take me away--oh, take me away from HER!"

"From ME?" I panted.

"From you--from you!" she cried.

Even Mrs. Grose looked across at me dismayed, while I hadnothing todo but communicate again with the figure that, on the oppositebank,without a movement, as rigidly still as if catching, beyond theinterval, our voices, was as vividly there for my disaster as it

was notthere for my service. The wretched child had spoken exactly asif shehad got from some outside source each of her stabbing littlewords, andI could therefore, in the full despair of all I had to accept, butsadlyshake my head at her. "If I had ever doubted, all my doubtwould atpresent have gone. I've been living with the miserable truth,and nowit has only too much closed round me. Of course I've lost you:I'veinterfered, and you've seen--under HER dictation"--with which Ifaced,over the pool again, our infernal witness--"the easy and perfectway tomeet it. I've done my best, but I've lost you. Goodbye." For Mrs.Grose I had an imperative, an almost frantic "Go, go!" beforewhich, in

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this one; in spite of which--and in spite also of the deeperdepths of consternation that had opened beneath my feet--there wasliterally, in

the ebbing actual, an extraordinarily sweet sadness. Onreaching thehouse I had never so much as looked for the boy; I had simplygonestraight to my room to change what I was wearing and to takein, ata glance, much material testimony to Flora's rupture. Her littlebelongings had all been removed. When later, by theschoolroom fire, I

was served with tea by the usual maid, I indulged, on thearticle of myother pupil, in no inquiry whatever. He had his freedom now--hemighthave it to the end! Well, he did have it; and it consisted--in partatleast--of his coming in at about eight o'clock and sitting downwith mein silence. On the removal of the tea things I had blown out the

candlesand drawn my chair closer: I was conscious of a mortalcoldness and feltas if I should never again be warm. So, when he appeared, Iwas sittingin the glow with my thoughts. He paused a moment by the dooras if tolook at me; then--as if to share them--came to the other side of thehearth and sank into a chair. We sat there in absolute stillness;yet hewanted, I felt, to be with me.

XXI

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Before a new day, in my room, had fully broken, my eyesopened to Mrs.Grose, who had come to my bedside with worse news. Florawas so markedly

feverish that an illness was perhaps at hand; she had passed anight of extreme unrest, a night agitated above all by fears that had fortheirsubject not in the least her former, but wholly her present,governess.It was not against the possible re-entrance of Miss Jessel on thescenethat she protested--it was conspicuously and passionately

against mine.I was promptly on my feet of course, and with an immense dealto ask;the more that my friend had discernibly now girded her loins tomeet meonce more. This I felt as soon as I had put to her the question of her sense of the child's sincerity as against my own. "Shepersists indenying to you that she saw, or has ever seen, anything?"

My visitor's trouble, truly, was great. "Ah, miss, it isn't a matteron which I can push her! Yet it isn't either, I must say, as if Imuchneeded to. It has made her, every inch of her, quite old."

"Oh, I see her perfectly from here. She resents, for all the worldlikesome high little personage, the imputation on her truthfulnessand,as it were, her respectability. 'Miss Jessel indeed--SHE!' Ah,she's'respectable,' the chit! The impression she gave me thereyesterday was,I assure you, the very strangest of all; it was quite beyond anyof theothers. I DID put my foot in it! She'll never speak to me again."

Hideous and obscure as it all was, it held Mrs. Grose brieflysilent;

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then she granted my point with a frankness which, I made sure,had morebehind it. "I think indeed, miss, she never will. She do have agrand

manner about it!"

"And that manner"--I summed it up--"is practically what's thematterwith her now!"

Oh, that manner, I could see in my visitor's face, and not a littleelsebesides! "She asks me every three minutes if I think you're

coming in."

"I see--I see." I, too, on my side, had so much more thanworked itout. "Has she said to you since yesterday--except to repudiateherfamiliarity with anything so dreadful--a single other word aboutMiss

Jessel?"

"Not one, miss. And of course you know," my friend added, "Itook itfrom her, by the lake, that, just then and there at least, thereWASnobody."

"Rather! and, naturally, you take it from her still."

"I don't contradict her. What else can I do?"

"Nothing in the world! You've the cleverest little person to dealwith.

They've made them--their two friends, I mean--still cleverereven thannature did; for it was wondrous material to play on! Flora hasnow hergrievance, and she'll work it to the end."

"Yes, miss; but to WHAT end?"

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"Why, that of dealing with me to her uncle. She'll make me outto himthe lowest creature--!"

I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose's face; shelookedfor a minute as if she sharply saw them together. "And him whothinks sowell of you!"

"He has an odd way--it comes over me now," I laughed,"--of proving it!

But that doesn't matter. What Flora wants, of course, is to getrid of me."

My companion bravely concurred. "Never again to so much aslook at you."

"So that what you've come to me now for," I asked, "is to speedme on my

way?" Before she had time to reply, however, I had her incheck. "I've abetter idea--the result of my reflections. My going WOULD seemthe rightthing, and on Sunday I was terribly near it. Yet that won't do.It's YOUwho must go. You must take Flora."

My visitor, at this, did speculate. "But where in the world--?"

"Away from here. Away from THEM. Away, even most of all,now, from me.Straight to her uncle."

"Only to tell on you--?"

"No, not 'only'! To leave me, in addition, with my remedy."

She was still vague. "And what IS your remedy?"

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"Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles's."

She looked at me hard. "Do you think he--?"

"Won't, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still tothinkit. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his sister as soon aspossible and leave me with him alone." I was amazed, myself,at thespirit I had still in reserve, and therefore perhaps a trifle themoredisconcerted at the way in which, in spite of this fine exampleof it,

she hesitated. "There's one thing, of course," I went on: "theymustn't,before she goes, see each other for three seconds." Then itcame over methat, in spite of Flora's presumable sequestration from theinstant of her return from the pool, it might already be too late. "Do youmean," Ianxiously asked, "that they HAVE met?"

At this she quite flushed. "Ah, miss, I'm not such a fool as that!If I've been obliged to leave her three or four times, it has beeneachtime with one of the maids, and at present, though she's alone,she'slocked in safe. And yet--and yet!" There were too many things.

"And yet what?"

"Well, are you so sure of the little gentleman?"

"I'm not sure of anything but YOU. But I have, since lastevening, a newhope. I think he wants to give me an opening. I do believe that--poorlittle exquisite wretch!--he wants to speak. Last evening, in thefirelight and the silence, he sat with me for two hours as if itwere

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just coming."

Mrs. Grose looked hard, through the window, at the gray,gathering day.

"And did it come?"

"No, though I waited and waited, I confess it didn't, and it waswithouta breach of the silence or so much as a faint allusion to hissister'scondition and absence that we at last kissed for good night. Allthesame," I continued, "I can't, if her uncle sees her, consent to his

seeing her brother without my having given the boy--and mostof allbecause things have got so bad--a little more time."

My friend appeared on this ground more reluctant than I couldquiteunderstand. "What do you mean by more time?"

"Well, a day or two--really to bring it out. He'll then be on MY

side--of which you see the importance. If nothing comes, I shallonlyfail, and you will, at the worst, have helped me by doing, onyourarrival in town, whatever you may have found possible." So Iput itbefore her, but she continued for a little so inscrutablyembarrassedthat I came again to her aid. "Unless, indeed," I wound up, "youreallywant NOT to go."

I could see it, in her face, at last clear itself; she put out herhandto me as a pledge. "I'll go--I'll go. I'll go this morning."

I wanted to be very just. "If you SHOULD wish still to wait, Iwouldengage she shouldn't see me."

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"No, no: it's the place itself. She must leave it." She held me amomentwith heavy eyes, then brought out the rest. "Your idea's theright one.

I myself, miss--"

"Well?"

"I can't stay."

The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities."You meanthat, since yesterday, you HAVE seen--?"

She shook her head with dignity. "I've HEARD--!"

"Heard?"

"From that child--horrors! There!" she sighed with tragic relief."On myhonor, miss, she says things--!" But at this evocation she brokedown;

she dropped, with a sudden sob, upon my sofa and, as I hadseen her dobefore, gave way to all the grief of it.

It was quite in another manner that I, for my part, let myself go."Oh,thank God!"

She sprang up again at this, drying her eyes with a groan."'ThankGod'?"

"It so justifies me!"

"It does that, miss!"

I couldn't have desired more emphasis, but I just hesitated."She's sohorrible?"

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I saw my colleague scarce knew how to put it. "Reallyshocking."

"And about me?"

"About you, miss--since you must have it. It's beyondeverything, for ayoung lady; and I can't think wherever she must have pickedup--"

"The appalling language she applied to me? I can, then!" Ibroke in witha laugh that was doubtless significant enough.

It only, in truth, left my friend still more grave. "Well, perhaps Iought to also--since I've heard some of it before! Yet I can'tbear it,"the poor woman went on while, with the same movement, sheglanced, on mydressing table, at the face of my watch. "But I must go back."

I kept her, however. "Ah, if you can't bear it--!"

"How can I stop with her, you mean? Why, just FOR that: to gether away.Far from this," she pursued, "far from THEM-"

"She may be different? She may be free?" I seized her almostwith joy."Then, in spite of yesterday, you BELIEVE--"

"In such doings?" Her simple description of them required, inthe lightof her expression, to be carried no further, and she gave methe wholething as she had never done. "I believe."

Yes, it was a joy, and we were still shoulder to shoulder: if Imightcontinue sure of that I should care but little what elsehappened. My

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support in the presence of disaster would be the same as it hadbeenin my early need of confidence, and if my friend would answerfor my

honesty, I would answer for all the rest. On the point of takingleaveof her, nonetheless, I was to some extent embarrassed."There's onething, of course--it occurs to me--to remember. My letter, givingthealarm, will have reached town before you."

I now perceived still more how she had been beating about the

bush andhow weary at last it had made her. "Your letter won't have gotthere.

Your letter never went."

"What then became of it?"

"Goodness knows! Master Miles--"

"Do you mean HE took it?" I gasped.

She hung fire, but she overcame her reluctance. "I mean that Isawyesterday, when I came back with Miss Flora, that it wasn'twhere youhad put it. Later in the evening I had the chance to questionLuke, andhe declared that he had neither noticed nor touched it." Wecould onlyexchange, on this, one of our deeper mutual soundings, and itwas Mrs.Grose who first brought up the plumb with an almost elated"You see!"

"Yes, I see that if Miles took it instead he probably will haveread itand destroyed it."

"And don't you see anything else?"

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I faced her a moment with a sad smile. "It strikes me that bythis timeyour eyes are open even wider than mine."

They proved to be so indeed, but she could still blush, almost,to showit. "I make out now what he must have done at school." Andshe gave, inher simple sharpness, an almost droll disillusioned nod. "Hestole!"

I turned it over--I tried to be more judicial. "Well--perhaps."

She looked as if she found me unexpectedly calm. "He stoleLETTERS!"

She couldn't know my reasons for a calmness after all prettyshallow; soI showed them off as I might. "I hope then it was to morepurpose thanin this case! The note, at any rate, that I put on the table

yesterday,"I pursued, "will have given him so scant an advantage--for itcontainedonly the bare demand for an interview--that he is already muchashamedof having gone so far for so little, and that what he had on hismindlast evening was precisely the need of confession." I seemed tomyself,for the instant, to have mastered it, to see it all. "Leave us,leaveus"--I was already, at the door, hurrying her off. "I'll get it out of him. He'll meet me--he'll confess. If he confesses, he's saved.And if he's saved--"

"Then YOU are?" The dear woman kissed me on this, and I tookherfarewell. "I'll save you without him!" she cried as she went.

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XXII

Yet it was when she had got off--and I missed her on the spot--that thegreat pinch really came. If I had counted on what it would giveme tofind myself alone with Miles, I speedily perceived, at least, thatitwould give me a measure. No hour of my stay in fact was so

assailedwith apprehensions as that of my coming down to learn thatthe carriagecontaining Mrs. Grose and my younger pupil had already rolledout of thegates. Now I WAS, I said to myself, face to face with theelements, andfor much of the rest of the day, while I fought my weakness, Icould

consider that I had been supremely rash. It was a tighter placestillthan I had yet turned round in; all the more that, for the firsttime,I could see in the aspect of others a confused reflection of thecrisis.What had happened naturally caused them all to stare; therewas toolittle of the explained, throw out whatever we might, in thesuddennessof my colleague's act. The maids and the men looked blank; theeffectof which on my nerves was an aggravation until I saw thenecessity of making it a positive aid. It was precisely, in short, by justclutchingthe helm that I avoided total wreck; and I dare say that, to bearupat all, I became, that morning, very grand and very dry. Iwelcomed the

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consciousness that I was charged with much to do, and Icaused it to beknown as well that, left thus to myself, I was quite remarkablyfirm. I

wandered with that manner, for the next hour or two, all overthe placeand looked, I have no doubt, as if I were ready for any onset.So, forthe benefit of whom it might concern, I paraded with a sickheart.

The person it appeared least to concern proved to be, tilldinner,

little Miles himself. My perambulations had given me,meanwhile, noglimpse of him, but they had tended to make more public thechangetaking place in our relation as a consequence of his having atthepiano, the day before, kept me, in Flora's interest, so beguiledandbefooled. The stamp of publicity had of course been fully given

by herconfinement and departure, and the change itself was nowushered inby our nonobservance of the regular custom of the schoolroom.He hadalready disappeared when, on my way down, I pushed open hisdoor, andI learned below that he had breakfasted--in the presence of acouple of the maids--with Mrs. Grose and his sister. He had then goneout, as hesaid, for a stroll; than which nothing, I reflected, could betterhaveexpressed his frank view of the abrupt transformation of myoffice. Whathe would not permit this office to consist of was yet to besettled:there was a queer relief, at all events--I mean for myself inespecial--in the renouncement of one pretension. If so muchhad sprung

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to the surface, I scarce put it too strongly in saying that whathadperhaps sprung highest was the absurdity of our prolonging thefiction

that I had anything more to teach him. It sufficiently stuck outthat,by tacit little tricks in which even more than myself he carriedout thecare for my dignity, I had had to appeal to him to let me off strainingto meet him on the ground of his true capacity. He had at anyratehis freedom now; I was never to touch it again; as I had amply

shown,moreover, when, on his joining me in the schoolroom theprevious night,I had uttered, on the subject of the interval just concluded,neitherchallenge nor hint. I had too much, from this moment, my otherideas.

Yet when he at last arrived, the difficulty of applying them, theaccumulations of my problem, were brought straight home to

me by thebeautiful little presence on which what had occurred had asyet, for theeye, dropped neither stain nor shadow.

To mark, for the house, the high state I cultivated I decreedthat mymeals with the boy should be served, as we called it,downstairs; sothat I had been awaiting him in the ponderous pomp of theroom outsideof the window of which I had had from Mrs. Grose, that firstscaredSunday, my flash of something it would scarce have done tocall light.Here at present I felt afresh--for I had felt it again and again--how myequilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will toshut

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my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to dealwithwas, revoltingly, against nature. I could only get on at all bytaking

"nature" into my confidence and my account, by treating mymonstrousordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, andunpleasant, butdemanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of thescrewof ordinary human virtue. No attempt, nonetheless, could wellrequiremore tact than just this attempt to supply, one's self, ALL the

nature.How could I put even a little of that article into a suppression of reference to what had occurred? How, on the other hand, couldI makereference without a new plunge into the hideous obscure? Well,a sortof answer, after a time, had come to me, and it was so farconfirmed asthat I was met, incontestably, by the quickened vision of what

was rarein my little companion. It was indeed as if he had found evennow--as hehad so often found at lessons--still some other delicate way toease meoff. Wasn't there light in the fact which, as we shared oursolitude,broke out with a specious glitter it had never yet quite worn?--the factthat (opportunity aiding, precious opportunity which had nowcome) itwould be preposterous, with a child so endowed, to forego thehelp onemight wrest from absolute intelligence? What had hisintelligence beengiven him for but to save him? Mightn't one, to reach his mind,risk thestretch of an angular arm over his character? It was as if, whenwe were

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face to face in the dining room, he had literally shown me theway.

The roast mutton was on the table, and I had dispensed withattendance.

Miles, before he sat down, stood a moment with his hands inhis pocketsand looked at the joint, on which he seemed on the point of passing somehumorous judgment. But what he presently produced was: "Isay, my dear,is she really very awfully ill?"

"Little Flora? Not so bad but that she'll presently be better.

Londonwill set her up. Bly had ceased to agree with her. Come hereand takeyour mutton."

He alertly obeyed me, carried the plate carefully to his seat,and,when he was established, went on. "Did Bly disagree with herso terribly

suddenly?"

"Not so suddenly as you might think. One had seen it comingon."

"Then why didn't you get her off before?"

"Before what?"

"Before she became too ill to travel."

I found myself prompt. "She's NOT too ill to travel: she onlymighthave become so if she had stayed. This was just the moment toseize. The

journey will dissipate the influence"--oh, I was grand!--"andcarry itoff."

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"I see, I see"--Miles, for that matter, was grand, too. He settledtohis repast with the charming little "table manner" that, from theday of

his arrival, had relieved me of all grossness of admonition.Whateverhe had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly feeding.Hewas irreproachable, as always, today; but he was unmistakablymoreconscious. He was discernibly trying to take for granted morethingsthan he found, without assistance, quite easy; and he dropped

intopeaceful silence while he felt his situation. Our meal was of thebriefest--mine a vain pretense, and I had the thingsimmediatelyremoved. While this was done Miles stood again with his handsin hislittle pockets and his back to me--stood and looked out of thewidewindow through which, that other day, I had seen what pulled

me up. Wecontinued silent while the maid was with us--as silent, itwhimsicallyoccurred to me, as some young couple who, on their wedding

journey, atthe inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter. He turned roundonlywhen the waiter had left us. "Well--so we're alone!"

XXIII

"Oh, more or less." I fancy my smile was pale. "Not absolutely.Weshouldn't like that!" I went on.

"No--I suppose we shouldn't. Of course we have the others."

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"We have the others--we have indeed the others," I concurred.

"Yet even though we have them," he returned, still with his

hands inhis pockets and planted there in front of me, "they don't muchcount, dothey?"

I made the best of it, but I felt wan. "It depends on what youcall'much'!"

"Yes"--with all accommodation--"everything depends!" On this,however,he faced to the window again and presently reached it with hisvague,restless, cogitating step. He remained there awhile, with hisforeheadagainst the glass, in contemplation of the stupid shrubs I knewand thedull things of November. I had always my hypocrisy of "work,"

behindwhich, now, I gained the sofa. Steadying myself with it there asI hadrepeatedly done at those moments of torment that I havedescribed as themoments of my knowing the children to be given to somethingfrom whichI was barred, I sufficiently obeyed my habit of being preparedfor theworst. But an extraordinary impression dropped on me as Iextracted ameaning from the boy's embarrassed back--none other thanthe impressionthat I was not barred now. This inference grew in a few minutesto sharpintensity and seemed bound up with the direct perception thatit waspositively HE who was. The frames and squares of the greatwindow were a

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kind of image, for him, of a kind of failure. I felt that I saw him,atany rate, shut in or shut out. He was admirable, but notcomfortable: I

took it in with a throb of hope. Wasn't he looking, through thehauntedpane, for something he couldn't see?--and wasn't it the firsttime inthe whole business that he had known such a lapse? The first,the veryfirst: I found it a splendid portent. It made him anxious, thoughhewatched himself; he had been anxious all day and, even while

in hisusual sweet little manner he sat at table, had needed all hissmallstrange genius to give it a gloss. When he at last turned roundto meetme, it was almost as if this genius had succumbed. "Well, Ithink I'mglad Bly agrees with ME!"

"You would certainly seem to have seen, these twenty-fourhours, a gooddeal more of it than for some time before. I hope," I went onbravely,"that you've been enjoying yourself."

"Oh, yes, I've been ever so far; all round about--miles and milesaway.I've never been so free."

He had really a manner of his own, and I could only try to keepup withhim. "Well, do you like it?"

He stood there smiling; then at last he put into two words--"Do YOU?"--more discrimination than I had ever heard two wordscontain.Before I had time to deal with that, however, he continued as if with

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the sense that this was an impertinence to be softened."Nothing couldbe more charming than the way you take it, for of course if we're alone

together now it's you that are alone most. But I hope," he threwin,"you don't particularly mind!"

"Having to do with you?" I asked. "My dear child, how can I helpminding? Though I've renounced all claim to your company--you're sobeyond me--I at least greatly enjoy it. What else should I stayon for?"

He looked at me more directly, and the expression of his face,gravernow, struck me as the most beautiful I had ever found in it."You stayon just for THAT?"

"Certainly. I stay on as your friend and from the tremendousinterest

I take in you till something can be done for you that may bemore worthyour while. That needn't surprise you." My voice trembled sothat I feltit impossible to suppress the shake. "Don't you remember how Itold you,when I came and sat on your bed the night of the storm, thatthere wasnothing in the world I wouldn't do for you?"

"Yes, yes!" He, on his side, more and more visibly nervous, hada toneto master; but he was so much more successful than I that,laughing outthrough his gravity, he could pretend we were pleasantly

jesting. "Onlythat, I think, was to get me to do something for YOU!"

"It was partly to get you to do something," I conceded. "But,you know,

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you didn't do it."

"Oh, yes," he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, "youwanted

me to tell you something."

"That's it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, youknow."

"Ah, then, is THAT what you've stayed over for?"

He spoke with a gaiety through which I could still catch thefinest

little quiver of resentful passion; but I can't begin to express theeffect upon me of an implication of surrender even so faint. Itwas asif what I had yearned for had come at last only to astonish me."Well,yes--I may as well make a clean breast of it, it was precisely forthat."

He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of

repudiating theassumption on which my action had been founded; but what hefinally saidwas: "Do you mean now--here?"

"There couldn't be a better place or time." He looked round himuneasily, and I had the rare--oh, the queer!--impression of theveryfirst symptom I had seen in him of the approach of immediatefear.It was as if he were suddenly afraid of me--which struck meindeed asperhaps the best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang of theeffortI felt it vain to try sternness, and I heard myself the next instantsogentle as to be almost grotesque. "You want so to go outagain?"

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"Awfully!" He smiled at me heroically, and the touching littlebraveryof it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. He hadpicked up

his hat, which he had brought in, and stood twirling it in a waythatgave me, even as I was just nearly reaching port, a perversehorror of what I was doing. To do it in ANY way was an act of violence,for whatdid it consist of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness andguilton a small helpless creature who had been for me a revelation

of thepossibilities of beautiful intercourse? Wasn't it base to createfor abeing so exquisite a mere alien awkwardness? I suppose I nowread intoour situation a clearness it couldn't have had at the time, for Iseemto see our poor eyes already lighted with some spark of aprevision

of the anguish that was to come. So we circled about, withterrors andscruples, like fighters not daring to close. But it was for eachotherwe feared! That kept us a little longer suspended andunbruised. "I'lltell you everything," Miles said--"I mean I'll tell you anythingyoulike. You'll stay on with me, and we shall both be all right, and IWILLtell you--I WILL. But not now."

"Why not now?"

My insistence turned him from me and kept him once more athis windowin a silence during which, between us, you might have heard apin drop.

Then he was before me again with the air of a person for whom,outside,

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someone who had frankly to be reckoned with was waiting. "Ihave to seeLuke."

I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I feltproportionately ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies madeup mytruth. I achieved thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. "Well,then,go to Luke, and I'll wait for what you promise. Only, in return forthat, satisfy, before you leave me, one very much smallerrequest."

He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able stillalittle to bargain. "Very much smaller--?"

"Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me"--oh, my workpreoccupiedme, and I was offhand!--"if, yesterday afternoon, from the tablein thehall, you took, you know, my letter."

XXIV

My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute fromsomethingthat I can describe only as a fierce split of my attention--astrokethat at first, as I sprang straight up, reduced me to the mereblindmovement of getting hold of him, drawing him close, and, whileI justfell for support against the nearest piece of furniture,instinctivelykeeping him with his back to the window. The appearance wasfull upon us

264



that I had already had to deal with here: Peter Quint had comeinto viewlike a sentinel before a prison. The next thing I saw was that,from

outside, he had reached the window, and then I knew that,close to theglass and glaring in through it, he offered once more to theroom hiswhite face of damnation. It represents but grossly what tookplacewithin me at the sight to say that on the second my decisionwas made;yet I believe that no woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a

timerecovered her grasp of the ACT. It came to me in the veryhorror of theimmediate presence that the act would be, seeing and facingwhat I sawand faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration--Icancall it by no other name--was that I felt how voluntarily, howtranscendently, I MIGHT. It was like fighting with a demon for a

human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how thehumansoul--held out, in the tremor of my hands, at arm's length--hadaperfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead. The facethat wasclose to mine was as white as the face against the glass, andout of itpresently came a sound, not low nor weak, but as if from muchfurtheraway, that I drank like a waft of fragrance.

"Yes--I took it."

At this, with a moan of joy, I enfolded, I drew him close; andwhileI held him to my breast, where I could feel in the sudden feverof hislittle body the tremendous pulse of his little heart, I kept myeyes on

265





found nothing!"--I let my elation out.

He gave the most mournful, thoughtful little headshake."Nothing."

"Nothing, nothing!" I almost shouted in my joy.

"Nothing, nothing," he sadly repeated.

I kissed his forehead; it was drenched. "So what have you donewith it?"

"I've burned it."

"Burned it?" It was now or never. "Is that what you did atschool?"

Oh, what this brought up! "At school?"

"Did you take letters?--or other things?"

"Other things?" He appeared now to be thinking of something

far off andthat reached him only through the pressure of his anxiety. Yetit didreach him. "Did I STEAL?"

I felt myself redden to the roots of my hair as well as wonder if itwere more strange to put to a gentleman such a question or tosee himtake it with allowances that gave the very distance of his fall intheworld. "Was it for that you mightn't go back?"

The only thing he felt was rather a dreary little surprise. "Didyouknow I mightn't go back?"

"I know everything."

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He gave me at this the longest and strangest look."Everything?"

"Everything. Therefore DID you--?" But I couldn't say it again.

Miles could, very simply. "No. I didn't steal."

My face must have shown him I believed him utterly; yet myhands--but itwas for pure tenderness--shook him as if to ask him why, if itwas allfor nothing, he had condemned me to months of torment."What then did

you do?"

He looked in vague pain all round the top of the room and drewhisbreath, two or three times over, as if with difficulty. He mighthavebeen standing at the bottom of the sea and raising his eyes tosomefaint green twilight. "Well--I said things."

"Only that?"

"They thought it was enough!"

"To turn you out for?"

Never, truly, had a person "turned out" shown so little toexplain itas this little person! He appeared to weigh my question, but ina mannerquite detached and almost helpless. "Well, I suppose Ioughtn't."

"But to whom did you say them?"

He evidently tried to remember, but it dropped--he had lost it."I don'tknow!"

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He almost smiled at me in the desolation of his surrender,which wasindeed practically, by this time, so complete that I ought tohave left

it there. But I was infatuated--I was blind with victory, thougheventhen the very effect that was to have brought him so muchnearer wasalready that of added separation. "Was it to everyone?" I asked.

"No; it was only to--" But he gave a sick little headshake. "Idon'tremember their names."

"Were they then so many?"

"No--only a few. Those I liked."

Those he liked? I seemed to float not into clearness, but into adarkerobscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of myvery pity

the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent. It was for theinstant confounding and bottomless, for if he WERE innocent,what thenon earth was _I_? Paralyzed, while it lasted, by the mere brushof thequestion, I let him go a little, so that, with a deep-drawn sigh,heturned away from me again; which, as he faced toward theclear window,I suffered, feeling that I had nothing now there to keep himfrom. "Anddid they repeat what you said?" I went on after a moment.

He was soon at some distance from me, still breathing hard andagainwith the air, though now without anger for it, of being confinedagainsthis will. Once more, as he had done before, he looked up at thedim

269



day as if, of what had hitherto sustained him, nothing was leftbut anunspeakable anxiety. "Oh, yes," he nevertheless replied--"theymust have

repeated them. To those THEY liked," he added.

There was, somehow, less of it than I had expected; but Iturned itover. "And these things came round--?"

"To the masters? Oh, yes!" he answered very simply. "But Ididn't knowthey'd tell."

"The masters? They didn't--they've never told. That's why I askyou."

He turned to me again his little beautiful fevered face. "Yes, itwastoo bad."

"Too bad?"

"What I suppose I sometimes said. To write home."

I can't name the exquisite pathos of the contradiction given tosucha speech by such a speaker; I only know that the next instant Iheardmyself throw off with homely force: "Stuff and nonsense!" Butthe nextafter that I must have sounded stern enough. "What WEREthese things?"

My sternness was all for his judge, his executioner; yet it madehimavert himself again, and that movement made ME, with a singlebound andan irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again,againstthe glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer, wasthe

270



hideous author of our woe--the white face of damnation. I felt asickswim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle,so that

the wildness of my veritable leap only served as a greatbetrayal. Isaw him, from the midst of my act, meet it with a divination,and on theperception that even now he only guessed, and that thewindow was stillto his own eyes free, I let the impulse flame up to convert theclimaxof his dismay into the very proof of his liberation. "No more, no

more, no more!" I shrieked, as I tried to press him against me,to myvisitant.

"Is she HERE?" Miles panted as he caught with his sealed eyesthedirection of my words. Then as his strange "she" staggered meand, witha gasp, I echoed it, "Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel!" he with a sudden

furygave me back.

I seized, stupefied, his supposition--some sequel to what wehad done toFlora, but this made me only want to show him that it wasbetter stillthan that. "It's not Miss Jessel! But it's at the window--straightbefore us. It's THERE--the coward horror, there for the lasttime!"

At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a baffleddog's on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air andlight,he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly overthe placeand missing wholly, though it now, to my sense, filled the roomlike thetaste of poison, the wide, overwhelming presence. "It's HE?"

271



I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into icetochallenge him. "Whom do you mean by 'he'?"

"Peter Quint--you devil!" His face gave again, round the room,itsconvulsed supplication. "WHERE?"

They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the nameand histribute to my devotion. "What does he matter now, my own?--what will he

EVER matter? _I_ have you," I launched at the beast, "but hehas lostyou forever!" Then, for the demonstration of my work, "There,

THERE!" Isaid to Miles.

But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again,andseen but the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was so

proud of heuttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, and thegrasp withwhich I recovered him might have been that of catching him inhis fall.I caught him, yes, I held him--it may be imagined with what apassion;but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was thatI held. We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart,dispossessed, had stopped.

272



THREE GHOST STORIES

By Charles Dickens

Three Ghost Stories

273



Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens

Contents:

The Signal-Man

The Haunted-House

The Trial For Murder

THE SIGNAL-MAN

"Halloa! Below there!"

When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at

the

door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short

pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the

ground,

that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice

came; but

instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep

cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and

looked

down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner

of

doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I

274



know

it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his

figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep

trench, and

mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry

sunset,

that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at

all.

"Halloa! Below!"

From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again,

and,

raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.

"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to

you?"

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him

without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle

question.

Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air,

quickly

changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that

caused

275



me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down.

When such

vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed

me, and

was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again,

and saw

him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by.

I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed

to

regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up

flag

towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards

distant. I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that

point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a

rough

zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.

The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It

was

made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter

as I went

down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give

me

time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with

276



which

he had pointed out the path.

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see

him

again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way

by

which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were

waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and

that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast.

His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that

I

stopped a moment, wondering at it.

I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level

of the

railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark

sallow

man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post

was in

as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a

dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip

of

sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of

this

277



great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction

terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to

a

black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a

barbarous,

depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its

way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so

much

cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had

left the natural world.

Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched

him.

Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back

one step,

and lifted his hand.

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted

my

attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a

rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In

me,

he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow

limits all

his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened

278



interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him;

but

I am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am

not

happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the

man

that daunted me.

He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the

tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were

missing from it, and then looked it me.

That light was part of his charge? Was it not?

He answered in a low voice,--"Don't you know it is?"

The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the

fixed eyes

and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have

speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his

mind.

In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected

in

his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous

279



thought to

flight.

"You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, "as if you had a dread

of

me."

"I was doubtful," he returned, "whether I had seen you before."

"Where?"

He pointed to the red light he had looked at.

"There?" I said.

Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), "Yes."

"My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it

may, I never was there, you may swear."

"I think I may," he rejoined. "Yes; I am sure I may."

His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks

with

readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there?

280



Yes;

that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but

exactness

and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual

work--

manual labour--he had next to none. To change that signal, to

trim

those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all

he

had to do under that head. Regarding those many long and

lonely

hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say

that the

routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had

grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down

here,--if

only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude

ideas of

its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also

worked

at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was,

and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it

necessary for

him when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp air,

and

281



could he never rise into the sunshine from between those high

stone

walls? Why, that depended upon times and circumstances.

Under some

conditions there would be less upon the Line than under others,

and

the same held good as to certain hours of the day and night. In

bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little

above

these lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called

by

his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled

anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose.

He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an

official book in which he had to make certain entries, a

telegraphic

instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of

which he had spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the

remark

that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say

without

offence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that

instances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be

found

282



wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was

so in

workhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate

resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less,

in any

great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe

it, sitting in that hut,--he scarcely could), a student of natural

philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild,

misused

his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He had no

complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay

upon

it. It was far too late to make another.

All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with

his

grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw

in the

word, "Sir," from time to time, and especially when he referred

to

his youth,--as though to request me to understand that he

claimed to

be nothing but what I found him. He was several times

interrupted

by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send

283



replies.

Once he had to stand without the door, and display a flag as a

train

passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver. In

the

discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact

and

vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining

silent until what he had to do was done.

In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest

of

men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance

that

while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen

colour,

turned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring,

opened

the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the

unhealthy

damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of

the

tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire

with

the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without

284



being

able to define, when we were so far asunder.

Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think

that I

have met with a contented man."

(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.)

"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in

which

he had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled."

He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said

them,

however, and I took them up quickly.

"With what? What is your trouble?"

"It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to

speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell

you."

285



"But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when

shall

it be?"

"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-

morrow night, sir."

"I will come at eleven."

He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. "I'll show

my

white light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low voice, "till you

have found the way up. When you have found it, don't call out!

And

when you are at the top, don't call out!"

His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I

said

no more than, "Very well."

"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out! Let

me ask

you a parting question. What made you cry, 'Halloa! Below

there!'

to-night?"

286



"Heaven knows," said I. "I cried something to that effect--"

"Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them

well."

"Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt,

because I

saw you below."

"For no other reason?"

"What other reason could I possibly have?"

"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any

supernatural way?"

"No."

He wished me good-night, and held up his light. I walked by the

side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable

sensation

of a train coming behind me) until I found the path. It was

easier

to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any

adventure.

287



Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch

of

the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven.

He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. "I

have not called out," I said, when we came close together;

"may I

speak now?" "By all means, sir." "Good-night, then, and here's

my

hand." "Good-night, sir, and here's mine." With that we walked

side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat

down

by the fire.

"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as

soon as

we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a

whisper,

"that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I

took

you for some one else yesterday evening. That troubles me."

"That mistake?"

"No. That some one else."

288



"Who is it?"

"I don't know."

"Like me?"

"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the

face, and the right arm is waved,--violently waved. This way."

I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an

arm

gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, "For

God's

sake, clear the way!"

"One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here, when

I

heard a voice cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' I started up, looked

from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red

light

near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice

seemed

hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out! Look out!' And

then

attain, 'Halloa! Below there! Look out!' I caught up my lamp,

289



turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, 'What's

wrong? What has happened? Where?' It stood just outside the

blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I

wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right

up

at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away,

when

it was gone."

"Into the tunnel?" said I.

"No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, and

held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the

measured

distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and

trickling through the arch. I ran out again faster than I had run

in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I

looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went

up

the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again,

and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has

been

given. Is anything wrong?' The answer came back, both ways,

'All

well.'"

290



Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine,

I

showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his

sense of

sight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the

delicate

nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to

have

often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious

of the

nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments

upon themselves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but

listen

for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we

speak so

low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires."

That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening

for

a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the

wires,--

he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and

watching.

But he would beg to remark that he had not finished.

291



I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching

my

arm, -

"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident

on

this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded

were

brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure

had

stood."

A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best

against it.

It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable

coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was

unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually

occur,

and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a

subject.

Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw

that he

was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of

common

sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the

292



ordinary

calculations of life.

He again begged to remark that he had not finished.

I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions.

"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and

glancing

over his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was just a year ago. Six or

seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise

and

shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing

at the

door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again."

He

stopped, with a fixed look at me.

"Did it cry out?"

"No. It was silent."

"Did it wave its arm?"

293



"No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands

before the face. Like this."

Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action

of

mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on

tombs.

"Did you go up to it?"

"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly

because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again,

daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone."

"But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?"

He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice

giving

a ghastly nod each time:-

"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at

a

carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of

hands

and heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal

294



the

driver, Stop! He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train

drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after

it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A

beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the

compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this

floor

between us."

Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the

boards at

which he pointed to himself.

"True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you."

I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth

was

very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long

lamenting wail.

He resumed. "Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is

troubled. The spectre came back a week ago. Ever since, it has

been there, now and again, by fits and starts."

"At the light?"

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"At the Danger-light."

"What does it seem to do?"

He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence,

that

former gesticulation of, "For God's sake, clear the way!"

Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me,

for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, 'Below

there!

Look out! Look out!' It stands waving to me. It rings my little

bell--"

I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I

was here, and you went to the door?"

"Twice."

"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you. My

eyes

were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am

a

living man, it did NOT ring at those times. No, nor at any other

296



time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical

things by the station communicating with you."

He shook his head. "I have never made a mistake as to that

yet, sir.

I have never confused the spectre's ring with the man's. The

ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from

nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the

eye. I don't wonder that you failed to hear it. But I heard it."

"And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out?"

"It WAS there."'

"Both times?"

He repeated firmly: "Both times."

"Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?"

He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but

arose. I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood

in

the doorway. There was the Danger-light. There was the dismal

mouth of the tunnel. There were the high, wet stone walls of

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the

cutting. There were the stars above them.

"Do you see it?" I asked him, taking particular note of his face.

His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more

so,

perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them

earnestly

towards the same spot.

"No," he answered. "It is not there."

"Agreed," said I.

We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was

thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be

called

one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-

course

way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of

fact

between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of

positions.

298



"By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said, "that what

troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the

spectre

mean?"

I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand.

"What is its warning against?" he said, ruminating, with his

eyes on

the fire, and only by times turning them on me. "What is the

danger? Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging

somewhere

on the Line. Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be

doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But surely

this is a cruel haunting of me. What can I do?"

He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his

heated

forehead.

"If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can

give

no reason for it," he went on, wiping the palms of his hands. "I

should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was

mad. This is the way it would work,--Message: 'Danger! Take

299



care!' Answer: 'What Danger? Where?' Message: 'Don't know.

But, for God's sake, take care!' They would displace me. What

else

could they do?"

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental

torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by

an

unintelligible responsibility involving life.

"When it first stood under the Danger-light," he went on,

putting

his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands

outward

across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish

distress,

"why not tell me where that accident was to happen,--if it must

happen? Why not tell me how it could be averted,--if it could

have

been averted? When on its second coming it hid its face, why

not

tell me, instead, 'She is going to die. Let them keep her at

home'?

If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its

warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not

300



warn

me plainly now? And I, Lord help me! A mere poor signal-man

on

this solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be

believed, and power to act?"

When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's

sake, as

well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was

to

compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of

reality

or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever

thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it

was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not

understand these confounding Appearances. In this effort I

succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of

his

conviction. He became calm; the occupations incidental to his

post

as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his

attention:

and I left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay

through

the night, but he would not hear of it.

301



That I more than once looked back at the red light as I

ascended the

pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have

slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to

conceal. Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and

the

dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how

ought I

to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had

proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and

exact;

but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind? Though

in a

subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and

would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances

of

his continuing to execute it with precision?

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something

treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his

superiors

in the Company, without first being plain with himself and

proposing

302



a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to

accompany

him (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest

medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take

his opinion. A change in his time of duty would come round next

night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two

after

sunrise, and on again soon after sunset. I had appointed to

return

accordingly.

Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to

enjoy

it. The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-

path

near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an

hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back,

and

it would then be time to go to my signal-man's box.

Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and

mechanically

looked down, from the point from which I had first seen him. I

cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at

the

303



mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his

left

sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.

The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment,

for in a

moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man

indeed, and

that there was a little group of other men, standing at a short

distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he

made.

The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little

low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden

supports

and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than a bed.

With an irresistible sense that something was wrong,--with a

flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my

leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to

overlook or

correct what he did,--I descended the notched path with all the

speed I could make.

"What is the matter?" I asked the men.

304



"Signal-man killed this morning, sir."

"Not the man belonging to that box?"

"Yes, sir."

"Not the man I know?"

"You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him," said the man who

spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head, and

raising

an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed."

"O, how did this happen, how did this happen?" I asked, turning

from

one to another as the hut closed in again.

"He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew

his work

better. But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. It was

just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp in

his

hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was

towards

her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and was

305



showing how

it happened. Show the gentleman, Tom."

The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his

former

place at the mouth of the tunnel.

"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, "I saw him

at

the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass. There

was

no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As

he

didn't seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we

were

running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could

call."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Below there! Look out! Look out! For God's sake, clear

the way!'"

I started.

306



"Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling to him.

I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm

to

the last; but it was no use."

Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its

curious

circumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it,

point

out the coincidence that the warning of the Engine-Driver

included,

not only the words which the unfortunate Signal-man had

repeated to

me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself--not

he--had

attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he

had

imitated.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

CHAPTER I--THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE

Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and

environed by

307



none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make

acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this

Christmas

piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was

no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or

unwonted

circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than

that:

I had come to it direct from a railway station: it was not more

than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood

outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I

could see

the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the

valley.

I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace,

because I

doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly commonplace

people-

-and there my vanity steps in; but, I will take it on myself to

say

that anybody might see the house as I saw it, any fine autumn

morning.

The manner of my lighting on it was this.

308



I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to

stop

by the way, to look at the house. My health required a

temporary

residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that,

and

who had happened to drive past the house, had written to me

to

suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the train at midnight,

and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out

of

window at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky, and had

fallen

asleep again, and had woke up again to find the night gone,

with the

usual discontented conviction on me that I hadn't been to sleep

at

all;--upon which question, in the first imbecility of that

condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done

wager by

battle with the man who sat opposite me. That opposite man

had had,

through the night--as that opposite man always has--several

legs too

many, and all of them too long. In addition to this unreasonable

309



conduct (which was only to be expected of him), he had had a

pencil

and a pocket-book, and had been perpetually listening and

taking

notes. It had appeared to me that these aggravating notes

related

to the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have

resigned

myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he

was

in the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring

straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggle-

eyed

gentleman of a perplexed aspect, and his demeanour became

unbearable.

It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and

when I

had out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron country,

and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me

and the

stars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-

traveller

and said:

310



"I BEG your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular

in

me"? For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my

travelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty.

The goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me,

as if

the back of the carriage were a hundred miles off, and said,

with a

lofty look of compassion for my insignificance:

"In you, sir?--B."

"B, sir?" said I, growing warm.

"I have nothing to do with you, sir," returned the gentleman;

"pray

let me listen--O."

He enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down.

At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no

communication

with the guard, is a serious position. The thought came to my

relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a

311



Rapper: one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the highest

respect, but whom I don't believe in. I was going to ask him the

question, when he took the bread out of my mouth.

"You will excuse me," said the gentleman contemptuously, "if I

am

too much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at

all

about it. I have passed the night--as indeed I pass the whole of

my

time now--in spiritual intercourse."

"O!" said I, somewhat snappishly.

"The conferences of the night began," continued the gentleman,

turning several leaves of his note-book, "with this message:

'Evil

communications corrupt good manners.'"

"Sound," said I; "but, absolutely new?"

"New from spirits," returned the gentleman.

312



I could only repeat my rather snappish "O!" and ask if I might

be

favoured with the last communication.

"'A bird in the hand,'" said the gentleman, reading his last entry

with great solemnity, "'is worth two in the Bosh.'"

"Truly I am of the same opinion," said I; "but shouldn't it be

Bush?"

"It came to me, Bosh," returned the gentleman.

The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had

delivered this special revelation in the course of the night. "My

friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway

carriage. How do you do? There are seventeen thousand four

hundred

and seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them.

Pythagoras

is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like

travelling." Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this scientific

intelligence. "I am glad to see you, AMICO. COME STA? Water

will

freeze when it is cold enough. ADDIO!" In the course of the

night,

313



also, the following phenomena had occurred. Bishop Butler had

insisted on spelling his name, "Bubler," for which offence

against

orthography and good manners he had been dismissed as out

of temper.

John Milton (suspected of wilful mystification) had repudiated

the

authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint

authors of

that poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively named

Grungers and

Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of

England,

had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh

circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet, under the

direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots.

If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me

with

these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the

sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent

Order of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them. In a

word, I

was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get out at

the

314



next station, and to exchange these clouds and vapours for the

free

air of Heaven.

By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away

among

such leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and

russet

trees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation,

and

thought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by

which they

are sustained; the gentleman's spiritual intercourse seemed to

me as

poor a piece of journey-work as ever this world saw. In which

heathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and

stopped

to examine it attentively.

It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden: a

pretty even square of some two acres. It was a house of about

the

time of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in

as

bad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal

315



admirer of

the whole quartet of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had,

within a

year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say

cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner,

and was

already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours

were fresh. A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall,

announcing that it was "to let on very reasonable terms, well

furnished." It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by

trees,

and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front

windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of

which

had been extremely ill chosen.

It was easy to see that it was an avoided house--a house that

was

shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a

church spire

some half a mile off--a house that nobody would take. And the

natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a

haunted

house.

316



No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is

so

solemn to me, as the early morning. In the summer-time, I

often

rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work

before

breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply

impressed by

the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there is

something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces

asleep--in

the knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom

we are

dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive

state,

anticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all

tending--the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the

deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned

occupation, all are images of Death. The tranquillity of the hour

is the tranquillity of Death. The colour and the chill have the

same association. Even a certain air that familiar household

objects take upon them when they first emerge from the

shadows of

the night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to

be

317



long ago, has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face

of

maturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look. Moreover,

I

once saw the apparition of my father, at this hour. He was alive

and well, and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the

daylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood

beside my bed. His head was resting on his hand, and whether

he was

slumbering or grieving, I could not discern. Amazed to see him

there, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and

watched

him. As he did not move, I spoke to him more than once. As he

did

not move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his

shoulder,

as I thought--and there was no such thing.

For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly

statable, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time.

Any

house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early

morning;

and a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater

318



advantage

than then.

I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house

upon

my mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding his

door-step. I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the

house.

"Is it haunted?" I asked.

The landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, "I

say

nothing."

"Then it IS haunted?"

"Well!" cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had

the

appearance of desperation--"I wouldn't sleep in it."

"Why not?"

"If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to

ring 'em; and all the doors in a house bang, with nobody to

319



bang

'em; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there;

why,

then," said the landlord, "I'd sleep in that house."

"Is anything seen there?"

The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former

appearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for

"Ikey!"

The call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round

red

face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth,

a

turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars,

with

mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him,

and to

be in a fair way--if it were not pruned--of covering his head and

overunning his boots.

"This gentleman wants to know," said the landlord, "if

anything's

seen at the Poplars."

320



"'Ooded woman with a howl," said Ikey, in a state of great

freshness.

"Do you mean a cry?"

"I mean a bird, sir."

"A hooded woman with an owl. Dear me! Did you ever see

her?"

"I seen the howl."

"Never the woman?"

"Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together."

"Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl?"

"Lord bless you, sir! Lots."

"Who?"

"Lord bless you, sir! Lots."

321



"The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his

shop?"

"Perkins? Bless you, Perkins wouldn't go a-nigh the place. No!"

observed the young man, with considerable feeling; "he an't

overwise, an't Perkins, but he an't such a fool as THAT."

(Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins's

knowing

better.)

"Who is--or who was--the hooded woman with the owl? Do you

know?"

"Well!" said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he

scratched his head with the other, "they say, in general, that

she

was murdered, and the howl he 'ooted the while."

This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn,

except

that a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever I

see,

had been took with fits and held down in 'em, after seeing the

hooded woman. Also, that a personage, dimly described as "a

322



hold

chap, a sort of one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby,

unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said,

'Why not?

and even if so, mind your own business,'" had encountered the

hooded

woman, a matter of five or six times. But, I was not materially

assisted by these witnesses: inasmuch as the first was in

California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed

by

the landlord), Anywheres.

Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the

mysteries,

between which and this state of existence is interposed the

barrier

of the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live;

and although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know

anything

of them; I can no more reconcile the mere banging of doors,

ringing

of bells, creaking of boards, and such-like insignificances, with

the majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all the Divine

rules

that I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little

323



while before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellow-

traveller to the chariot of the rising sun. Moreover, I had lived

in two haunted houses--both abroad. In one of these, an old

Italian

palace, which bore the reputation of being very badly haunted

indeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that

account,

I lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly:

notwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious

bedrooms,

which were never used, and possessed, in one large room in

which I

sat reading, times out of number at all hours, and next to which

I

slept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions. I gently

hinted

these considerations to the landlord. And as to this particular

house having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why, how

many things

had bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad

names,

and did he not think that if he and I were persistently to

whisper

in the village that any weird-looking old drunken tinker of the

neighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in

324



time

to be suspected of that commercial venture! All this wise talk

was

perfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess,

and

was as dead a failure as ever I made in my life.

To cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the

haunted

house, and was already half resolved to take it. So, after

breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brother-in-law (a whip

and

harness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under

submission to

a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel

persuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my

landlord and

by Ikey.

Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal.

The

slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees,

were

doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built,

ill-planned, and ill-fitted. It was damp, it was not free from dry

325



rot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy

victim

of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of

man's

hands whenever it's not turned to man's account. The kitchens

and

offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above

stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between

patches

of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old

well

with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near

the

bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells. One of

these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white

letters,

MASTER B. This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most.

"Who was Master B.?" I asked. "Is it known what he did while

the

owl hooted?"

"Rang the bell," said Ikey.

326



I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this

young

man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself. It was a

loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The

other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms

to

which their wires were conducted: as "Picture Room," "Double

Room,"

"Clock Room," and the like. Following Master B.'s bell to its

source I found that young gentleman to have had but

indifferent

third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-

loft,

with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been

exceedingly

small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner

chimney-

piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb.

The

papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with

fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the

door.

It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always

made

327



a point of pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey

could suggest why he made such a fool of himself.

Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at

top, I

made no other discoveries. It was moderately well furnished,

but

sparely. Some of the furniture--say, a third--was as old as the

house; the rest was of various periods within the last half-

century.

I was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of the

county

town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I took it for six

months.

It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my

maiden

sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very

handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us, a deaf

stable-

man, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young

person

called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the attendant last

enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union

Female

328



Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous

engagement.

The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a

raw

cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house

was

most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak

turn of

intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and

requested

that her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2

Tuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event

of

anything happening to her from the damp. Streaker, the

housemaid,

feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The Odd Girl,

who

had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made

arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the

scullery

window, and rearing an oak.

We went, before dark, through all the natural--as opposed to

supernatural--miseries incidental to our state. Dispiriting

329



reports

ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and

descended from the upper rooms. There was no rolling-pin,

there was

no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know

what it

is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was

broken, the

last people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of

the

landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was

cheerful

and exemplary. But within four hours after dark we had got into

a

supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen "Eyes," and

was in

hysterics.

My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to

ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not

left

Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women,

or

any one of them, for one minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the

Odd

330



Girl had "seen Eyes" (no other explanation could ever be drawn

from

her), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar

applied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon.

I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under

these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock

Master

B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk

howled

until the house resounded with his lamentations!

I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as

the

mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the

memory

of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats,

or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by

one

cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don't

know;

but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until

I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck--in

other

331



words, breaking his bell short off--and silencing that young

gentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever.

But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving

powers

of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that

very

inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes

endowed

with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would

address

the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had

painted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken

Master B.'s

bell away and balked the ringing, and if they could suppose that

that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with

no

better behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought

him and

the sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance

in

the present imperfect state of existence, could they also

suppose a

mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those

contemptible

332



means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the

disembodied

spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?--I say I would become

emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an

address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd

Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring

among

us like a parochial petrifaction.

Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most

discomfiting nature. I am unable to say whether she was of an

usually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter

with her,

but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the

production of

the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with.

Combined

with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in

those

specimens, so that they didn't fall, but hung upon her face and

nose. In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her

head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the

Admirable

Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse of

money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as

333



with a

garment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest that

the

Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last

wishes

regarding her silver watch.

As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was

among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky.

Hooded

woman? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect

Convent of

hooded women. Noises? With that contagion downstairs, I

myself

have sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard so

many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my

blood

if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries. Try

this

in bed, in the dead of the night: try this at your own

comfortable

fire-side, in the life of the night. You can fill any house with

noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your

nervous system.

334



I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us,

and

there is no such contagion under the sky. The women (their

noses in

a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always

primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair-

triggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions

that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always

established

the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic. If

Cook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should

presently hear a bump on the ceiling; and this took place so

constantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go

about the house, administering a touch of his art which I

believe is

called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with.

It was in vain to do anything. It was in vain to be frightened,

for

the moment in one's own person, by a real owl, and then to

show the

owl. It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord

on the piano, that Turk always howled at particular notes and

combinations. It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the

bells,

335



and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down

inexorably and silence it. It was in vain to fire up chimneys, let

torches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms

and

recesses. We changed servants, and it was no better. The new

set

ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better. At last,

our

comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and

wretched,

that I one night dejectedly said to my sister: "Patty, I begin to

despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think

we

must give this up."

My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, "No,

John,

don't give it up. Don't be beaten, John. There is another way."

"And what is that?" said I.

"John," returned my sister, "if we are not to be driven out of

this

house, and that for no reason whatever, that is apparent to you

or

336



me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and

solely into

our own hands."

"But, the servants," said I.

"Have no servants," said my sister, boldly.

Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the

possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions. The

notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very

doubtful.

"We know they come here to be frightened and infect one

another, and

we know they are frightened and do infect one another," said

my

sister.

"With the exception of Bottles," I observed, in a meditative

tone.

(The deaf stable-man. I kept him in my service, and still keep

him,

as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in

England.)

337



"To be sure, John," assented my sister; "except Bottles. And

what

does that go to prove? Bottles talks to nobody, and hears

nobody

unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles

ever

given, or taken! None."

This was perfectly true; the individual in question having

retired,

every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach-house,

with no

other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the

pail

of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through

me, if I

had put myself without announcement in Bottles's way after

that

minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth

remembering.

Neither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of any of our

many

uproars. An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at

his

supper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl

338



marble,

and had only put another potato in his cheek, or profited by the

general misery to help himself to beefsteak pie.

"And so," continued my sister, "I exempt Bottles. And

considering,

John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be

kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we

cast

about among our friends for a certain selected number of the

most

reliable and willing--form a Society here for three months--wait

upon ourselves and one another--live cheerfully and socially--

and

see what happens."

I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the

spot,

and went into her plan with the greatest ardour.

We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our

measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the

friends in

whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month

339



unexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and

mustered in the haunted house.

I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made

while

my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring to me as not

improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly

because he

wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside,

but

unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who

came

in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own

throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun?

On

his saying, "Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her," I

begged

the favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine.

"SHE'S a true one, sir," said Ikey, after inspecting a double-

barrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago. "No

mistake about HER, sir."

"Ikey," said I, "don't mention it; I have seen something in this

house."

340



"No, sir?" he whispered, greedily opening his eyes. "'Ooded

lady,

sir?"

"Don't be frightened," said I. "It was a figure rather like you."

"Lord, sir?"

"Ikey!" said I, shaking hands with him warmly: I may say

affectionately; "if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the

greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I

promise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I

see it again!"

The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little

precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor. I imparted my

secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing

his

cap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed

something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one

night when it had burst out ringing; and because I had

remarked that

we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening

to

comfort the servants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was

341



afraid

of the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he

would

play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an

opportunity.

The Odd Girl's case was exactly similar. She went about the

house

in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully,

and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many

of the

sounds we heard. I had had my eye on the two, and I know it.

It is

not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous

state

of mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly

known

to every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or

other

watchful experience; that it is as well established and as

common a

state of mind as any with which observers are acquainted; and

that

it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be

suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any

question of this kind.

342



To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were all

assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms. That done, and

every

bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely

examined

by the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as

if

we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting

party, or were shipwrecked. I then recounted the floating

rumours

concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.: with

others,

still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation,

relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who

went

up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table; and also to

an

impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch.

Some of

these ideas I really believe our people below had communicated

to

one another in some diseased way, without conveying them in

words.

We then gravely called one another to witness, that we were

not

343



there to be deceived, or to deceive--which we considered pretty

much

the same thing--and that, with a serious sense of responsibility,

we

would be strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow

out

the truth. The understanding was established, that any one who

heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace

them,

should knock at my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last

night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that

then present hour of our coming together in the haunted house,

should be brought to light for the good of all; and that we would

hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some

remarkable

provocation to break silence.

We were, in number and in character, as follows:

First--to get my sister and myself out of the way--there were

we

two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I

drew Master B.'s. Next, there was our first cousin John

Herschel,

so called after the great astronomer: than whom I suppose a

344



better

man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a

charming creature to whom he had been married in the

previous

spring. I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent

to

bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm

may

do at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business

best, and

I must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left

her

endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room.

Alfred

Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-

twenty

for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room;

mine,

usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-

room

within it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no

wedges I

was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any

weather, wind

or no wind. Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be "fast"

345



(another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is

much

too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have

distinguished himself before now, if his father had not

unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a

year,

on the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to

spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break,

or

that he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay

twenty per

cent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his

fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and

a

most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture

Room. She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real

business

earnestness, and "goes in"--to use an expression of Alfred's--

for

Woman's mission, Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and

everything that

is woman's with a capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and

ought not to be. "Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven

prosper

you!" I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of

346



her at the Picture-Room door, "but don't overdo it. And in

respect

of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more

employments

being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet

assigned to her, don't fly at the unfortunate men, even those

men

who are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural

oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do

sometimes

spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters,

mothers,

aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not ALL Wolf

and

Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it." However, I digress.

Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room. We

had but

three other chambers: the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room,

and the

Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, "slung his

hammock," as

he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack

as

the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is gray now, but as

347



handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago--nay,

handsomer. A

portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with

a

frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I

remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better

for

their silver setting. He has been wherever his Union namesake

flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the

Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have

beamed

and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have

cried,

"You know Jack Governor? Then you know a prince of men!"

That he

is! And so unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet

him coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal's skin, you

would be

vaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform.

Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it

fell out that he married another lady and took her to South

America,

where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He

brought

348



down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef;

for,

he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling,

is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs

a

piece in his portmanteau. He had also volunteered to bring with

him

one "Nat Beaver," an old comrade of his, captain of a

merchantman.

Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and

apparently

as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man,

with a

world of watery experiences in him, and great practical

knowledge.

At times, there was a curious nervousness about him,

apparently the

lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many

minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr.

Undery, my friend and solicitor: who came down, in an amateur

capacity, "to go through with it," as he said, and who plays

whist

better than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the

beginning

to the red cover at the end.

349



I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal

feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful

resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I

ever

ate, including unapproachable curries. My sister was pastrycook

and

confectioner. Starling and I were Cook's Mate, turn and turn

about,

and on special occasions the chief cook "pressed" Mr. Beaver.

We

had a great deal of out-door sport and exercise, but nothing

was

neglected within, and there was no ill-humour or

misunderstanding

among us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at

least

one good reason for being reluctant to go to bed.

We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first night, I

was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship's lantern in

his

hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed

me

that he "was going aloft to the main truck," to have the

weathercock

350



down. It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but Jack

called my

attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said

somebody would be "hailing a ghost" presently, if it wasn't

done.

So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for

the

wind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack,

lantern

and all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a

cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood

upon

nothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until

they

both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height,

that I

thought they would never come down. Another night, they

turned out

again, and had a chimney-cowl off. Another night, they cut a

sobbing and gulping water-pipe away. Another night, they

found out

something else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest

manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective

bedroom

351



windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to "overhaul"

something mysterious in the garden.

The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody

revealed

anything. All we knew was, if any one's room were haunted, no

one

looked the worse for it.

CHAPTER II--THE GHOST IN MASTER B.'S ROOM

When I established myself in the triangular garret which had

gained

so distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned to

Master B. My speculations about him were uneasy and

manifold.

Whether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his

having

been born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill. Whether the

initial

letter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black,

Brown, Barker, Buggins, Baker, or Bird. Whether he was a

foundling,

and had been baptized B. Whether he was a lion-hearted boy,

and B.

352



was short for Briton, or for Bull. Whether he could possibly have

been kith and kin to an illustrious lady who brightened my own

childhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother

Bunch?

With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much. I

also

carried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits

of

the deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore

Boots (he

couldn't have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was

good

at Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in his Buoyant

Boyhood

Bathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor,

Bournemouth,

Brighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard Ball?

So, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B.

It was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard

had a

dream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him. But, the

instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my

353



thoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his

initial

letter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet.

For six nights, I had been worried this in Master B.'s room,

when I

began to perceive that things were going wrong.

The first appearance that presented itself was early in the

morning

when it was but just daylight and no more. I was standing

shaving

at my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consternation

and

amazement, that I was shaving--not myself--I am fifty--but a

boy.

Apparently Master B.!

I trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there. I

looked

again in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and

expression

of a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get

one. Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the

room,

354



and went back to the looking-glass, resolved to steady my hand

and

complete the operation in which I had been disturbed. Opening

my

eyes, which I had shut while recovering my firmness, I now met

in

the glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of

four

or five and twenty. Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my

eyes,

and made a strong effort to recover myself. Opening them

again, I

saw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long

been

dead. Nay, I even saw my grandfather too, whom I never did

see in

my life.

Although naturally much affected by these remarkable

visitations, I

determined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon for

the

present general disclosure. Agitated by a multitude of curious

thoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to

encounter

355



some new experience of a spectral character. Nor was my

preparation

needless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two

o'clock in

the morning, what were my feelings to find that I was sharing

my bed

with the skeleton of Master B.!

I sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also. I then heard a

plaintive voice saying, "Where am I? What is become of me?"

and,

looking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B.

The young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion: or

rather,

was not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-

and-

salt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons. I

observed

that these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of

the

young ghost, and appeared to descend his back. He wore a frill

round his neck. His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be

inky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting this action with

some

356



feeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of

nausea, I

concluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had

habitually

taken a great deal too much medicine.

"Where am I?" said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice. "And

why was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have all that

Calomel given me?"

I replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn't

tell him.

"Where is my little sister," said the ghost, "and where my

angelic

little wife, and where is the boy I went to school with?"

I entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things

to

take heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school

with. I

represented to him that probably that boy never did, within

human

experience, come out well, when discovered. I urged that I

myself

357



had, in later life, turned up several boys whom I went to school

with, and none of them had at all answered. I expressed my

humble

belief that that boy never did answer. I represented that he was

a

mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I recounted how, the

last time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a

wall

of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible

subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic. I

related how, on the strength of our having been together at

"Old

Doylance's," he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a

social

offence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak

embers of

belief in Doylance's boys, I had let him in; and how, he had

proved

to be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of

Adam

with inexplicable notions concerning the currency, and with a

proposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being

abolished, instantly strike off and circulate, God knows how

many

thousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny notes.

358



The ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare. "Barber!"

it

apostrophised me when I had finished.

"Barber?" I repeated--for I am not of that profession.

"Condemned," said the ghost, "to shave a constant change of

customers--now, me--now, a young man--now, thyself as thou

art--now,

thy father--now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down

with a

skeleton every night, and to rise with it every morning--"

(I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement.)

"Barber! Pursue me!"

I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under

a

spell to pursue the phantom. I immediately did so, and was in

Master B.'s room no longer.

Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had

been

forced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no

359



doubt, told

the exact truth--particularly as they were always assisted with

leading questions, and the Torture was always ready. I

asseverate

that, during my occupation of Master B.'s room, I was taken by

the

ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as

any

of those. Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with

a

goat's horns and tail (something between Pan and an old

clothesman),

holding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life

and

less decent; but, I came upon other things which appeared to

me to

have more meaning.

Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare

without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance

on a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse. The very

smell

of the animal's paint--especially when I brought it out, by

making

him warm--I am ready to swear to. I followed the ghost,

360



afterwards,

in a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of

which,

the present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again

ready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange,

and

very old bellows. (In this, I appeal to previous generations to

confirm or refute me.) I pursued the phantom, on a headless

donkey:

at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of

his

stomach that his head was always down there, investigating it;

on

ponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and

swings,

from fairs; in the first cab--another forgotten institution where

the fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the

driver.

Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in

pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more

wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself

to

one experience from which you may judge of many.

361



I was marvellously changed. I was myself, yet not myself. I was

conscious of something within me, which has been the same all

through my life, and which I have always recognised under all

its

phases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I

who

had gone to bed in Master B.'s room. I had the smoothest of

faces

and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like

myself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of

legs,

behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the

most

astounding nature.

This proposition was, that we should have a Seraglio.

The other creature assented warmly. He had no notion of

respectability, neither had I. It was the custom of the East, it

was the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have

the

corrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet

memories!), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of

imitation. "O, yes! Let us," said the other creature with a jump,

"have a Seraglio."

362



It was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the

meritorious character of the Oriental establishment we

proposed to

import, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss

Griffin. It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of

human

sympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of the

great

Haroun. Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then,

let

us entrust it to Miss Bule.

We were ten in Miss Griffin's establishment by Hampstead

Ponds;

eight ladies and two gentlemen. Miss Bule, whom I judge to

have

attained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society. I

opened the subject to her in the course of the day, and

proposed

that she should become the Favourite.

Miss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and

charming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by

the

idea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for

363



Miss

Pipson? Miss Bule--who was understood to have vowed towards

that

young lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, on

the Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with

case and

lock--Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson,

disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the

common.

Now, Miss Pipson, having curly hair and blue eyes (which was

my idea

of anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I

promptly

replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair

Circassian.

"And what then?" Miss Bule pensively asked.

I replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to

me

veiled, and purchased as a slave.

[The other creature had already fallen into the second male

place in

364



the State, and was set apart for Grand Vizier. He afterwards

resisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he

yielded.]

"Shall I not be jealous?" Miss Bule inquired, casting down her

eyes.

"Zobeide, no," I replied; "you will ever be the favourite Sultana;

the first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever

yours."

Miss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea

to

her seven beautiful companions. It occurring to me, in the

course

of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and

good-

natured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the

house,

and had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose

face

there was always more or less black-lead, I slipped into Miss

Bule's

hand after supper, a little note to that effect; dwelling on the

black-lead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of

365



Providence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief

of

the Blacks of the Hareem.

There were difficulties in the formation of the desired

institution,

as there are in all combinations. The other creature showed

himself

of a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the

throne,

pretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating

himself

before the Caliph; wouldn't call him Commander of the Faithful;

spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere "chap;"

said

he, the other creature, "wouldn't play"--Play!--and was

otherwise

coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was,

however,

put down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I

became blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest of the

daughters of men.

The smiles could only be bestowed when Miss Griffin was

looking

366



another way, and only then in a very wary manner, for there

was a

legend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with a

little

round ornament in the middle of the pattern on the back of her

shawl. But every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all

together, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal

Hareem

competed who should most beguile the leisure of the Serene

Haroun

reposing from the cares of State--which were generally, as in

most

affairs of State, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of

the

Faithful being a fearful boggler at a sum.

On these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of

the

Hareem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringing

for

that officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but

never

acquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical

reputation.

In the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the

367



Caliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of

anger

(Miss Pipson's pelisse), though it might be got over for the

moment,

was never to be quite satisfactorily accounted for. In the second

place, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of "Lork you

pretties!" was neither Eastern nor respectful. In the third place,

when specially instructed to say "Bismillah!" he always said

"Hallelujah!" This officer, unlike his class, was too good-

humoured

altogether, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed

approbation

to an incongruous extent, and even once--it was on the

occasion of

the purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand

purses

of gold, and cheap, too--embraced the Slave, the Favourite,

and the

Caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour,

and may there have been sons and daughters on that tender

bosom,

softening many a hard day since!)

Miss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to

imagine

368



what the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, if

she had

known, when she paraded us down the Hampstead Road two

and two, that

she was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy

and

Mahomedanism. I believe that a mysterious and terrible joy

with

which the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious

state,

inspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among us that there

was a

dreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew

all

things that could be learnt out of book) didn't know, were the

main-

spring of the preservation of our secret. It was wonderfully

kept,

but was once upon the verge of self-betrayal. The danger and

escape

occurred upon a Sunday. We were all ten ranged in a

conspicuous

part of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our head--as

we

were every Sunday--advertising the establishment in an

369



unsecular

sort of way--when the description of Solomon in his domestic

glory

happened to be read. The moment that monarch was thus

referred to,

conscience whispered me, "Thou, too, Haroun!" The officiating

minister had a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by

giving

him the appearance of reading personally at me. A crimson

blush,

attended by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features. The

Grand

Vizier became more dead than alive, and the whole Seraglio

reddened

as if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces.

At

this portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully

surveyed

the children of Islam. My own impression was, that Church and

State

had entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us,

and

that we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the

centre aisle. But, so Westerly--if I may be allowed the

expression

370



as opposite to Eastern associations--was Miss Griffin's sense of

rectitude, that she merely suspected Apples, and we were

saved.

I have called the Seraglio, united. Upon the question, solely,

whether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of

kissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless

inmates

divided. Zobeide asserted a counter-right in the Favourite to

scratch, and the fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a

green baize bag, originally designed for books. On the other

hand,

a young antelope of transcendent beauty from the fruitful plains

of

Camden Town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in

the half-

yearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the

holidays), held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting

the benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand

Vizier-

-who had no rights, and was not in question. At length, the

difficulty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful

slave as Deputy. She, raised upon a stool, officially received

upon

her cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for

371



other

Sultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the

Ladies

of the Hareem.

And now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, that

I

became heavily troubled. I began to think of my mother, and

what

she would say to my taking home at Midsummer eight of the

most

beautiful of the daughters of men, but all unexpected. I thought

of

the number of beds we made up at our house, of my father's

income,

and of the baker, and my despondency redoubled. The Seraglio

and

malicious Vizier, divining the cause of their Lord's unhappiness,

did their utmost to augment it. They professed unbounded

fidelity,

and declared that they would live and die with him. Reduced to

the

utmost wretchedness by these protestations of attachment, I

lay

awake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my frightful lot. In

372



my

despair, I think I might have taken an early opportunity of

falling

on my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my resemblance to

Solomon,

and praying to be dealt with according to the outraged laws of

my

country, if an unthought-of means of escape had not opened

before

me.

One day, we were out walking, two and two--on which occasion

the

Vizier had his usual instructions to take note of the boy at the

turn-pike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at

the

beauties of the Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of

the

night--and it happened that our hearts were veiled in gloom. An

unaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged

the

State into disgrace. That charmer, on the representation that

the

previous day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had

been sent

373



in a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), had

secretly but most pressingly invited thirty-five neighbouring

princes and princesses to a ball and supper: with a special

stipulation that they were "not to be fetched till twelve." This

wandering of the antelope's fancy, led to the surprising arrival

at

Miss Griffin's door, in divers equipages and under various

escorts,

of a great company in full dress, who were deposited on the top

step

in a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears.

At

the beginning of the double knocks attendant on these

ceremonies,

the antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself in;

and

at every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more and

more

distracted, that at last she had been seen to tear her front.

Ultimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been

followed

by solitude in the linen-closet, bread and water and a lecture to

all, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used

expressions: Firstly, "I believe you all of you knew of it;"

Secondly, "Every one of you is as wicked as another;" Thirdly,

374



"A

pack of little wretches."

Under these circumstances, we were walking drearily along;

and I

especially, with my. Moosulmaun responsibilities heavy on me,

was

in a very low state of mind; when a strange man accosted Miss

Griffin, and, after walking on at her side for a little while and

talking with her, looked at me. Supposing him to be a minion of

the

law, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with the

general purpose of making for Egypt.

The whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as

fast as

my legs would carry me (I had an impression that the first

turning

on the left, and round by the public-house, would be the

shortest

way to the Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the

faithless

Vizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike dodged me into

a

corner, like a sheep, and cut me off. Nobody scolded me when I

375



was

taken and brought back; Miss Griffin only said, with a stunning

gentleness, This was very curious! Why had I run away when

the

gentleman looked at me?

If I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should

have

made no answer; having no breath, I certainly made none. Miss

Griffin and the strange man took me between them, and walked

me back

to the palace in a sort of state; but not at all (as I couldn't help

feeling, with astonishment) in culprit state.

When we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss

Griffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour, chief of the dusky

guards of the Hareem. Mesrour, on being whispered to, began

to shed

tears. "Bless you, my precious!" said that officer, turning to me;

"your Pa's took bitter bad!"

I asked, with a fluttered heart, "Is he very ill?"

"Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb!" said the good

Mesrour,

376



kneeling down, that I might have a comforting shoulder for my

head

to rest on, "your Pa's dead!"

Haroun Alraschid took to flight at the words; the Seraglio

vanished;

from that moment, I never again saw one of the eight of the

fairest

of the daughters of men.

I was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as

Death, and

we had a sale there. My own little bed was so superciliously

looked

upon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called "The Trade," that

a

brass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a birdcage, were obliged

to

be put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it went for a song.

So

I heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought

what a

dismal song it must have been to sing!

377



Then, I was sent to a great, cold, bare, school of big boys;

where

everything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being

enough; where everybody, largo and small, was cruel; where

the boys

knew all about the sale, before I got there, and asked me what

I had

fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, "Going,

going,

gone!" I never whispered in that wretched place that I had been

Haroun, or had had a Seraglio: for, I knew that if I mentioned

my

reverses, I should be so worried, that I should have to drown

myself

in the muddy pond near the playground, which looked like the

beer.

Ah me, ah me! No other ghost has haunted the boy's room, my

friends, since I have occupied it, than the ghost of my own

childhood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own

airy

belief. Many a time have I pursued the phantom: never with

this

man's stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man's

hands of mine to touch it, never more to this man's heart of

378



mine to

hold it in its purity. And here you see me working out, as

cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the

glass

a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising

up with

the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion.

THE TRIAL FOR MURDER.

I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among

persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting

their

own psychological experiences when those have been of a

strange

sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in

such

wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal

life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller,

who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the

likeness of

a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the

same

traveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse,

vagary of

379



thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental

impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to

it.

To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such

subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our

experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences

of

objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock

of

experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so,

in

respect of being miserably imperfect.

In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up,

opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I know the

history of

the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a

late Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I

have

followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case

of

Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. It

may be necessary to state as to this last, that the sufferer (a

lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A

mistaken

380



assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part

of my

own case,--but only a part,--which would be wholly without

foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any

developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar

experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience

since.

It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain

murder

was committed in England, which attracted great attention. We

hear

more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to

their

atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this

particular

brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail. I

purposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal's

individuality.

When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell--or I

ought

rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was

nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell--on the man who

was

381



afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time

made

to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any

description of him can at that time have been given in the

newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered.

Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the

account of

that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I

read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times.

The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid

down the

paper, I was aware of a flash--rush--flow--I do not know what

to

call it,--no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive,--in

which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room,

like a

picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost

instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that

I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of

the dead body from the bed.

It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation,

but

in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of St. James's

382



Street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy-chair at the

moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar

shiver

which started the chair from its position. (But it is to be noted

that the chair ran easily on castors.) I went to one of the

windows

(there are two in the room, and the room is on the second

floor) to

refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It

was

a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and

cheerful.

The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought down from the

Park a

quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a

spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw

two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to

East.

They were one behind the other. The foremost man often

looked back

over his shoulder. The second man followed him, at a distance

of

some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised. First,

the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so

public a thoroughfare attracted my attention; and next, the

383



more

remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men

threaded

their way among the other passengers with a smoothness

hardly

consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement; and

no

single creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched

them, or

looked after them. In passing before my windows, they both

stared

up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that

I

could recognise them anywhere. Not that I had consciously

noticed

anything very remarkable in either face, except that the man

who

went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the

face

of the man who followed him was of the colour of impure wax.

I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole

establishment. My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I

wish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as

they

384



are popularly supposed to be. They kept me in town that

autumn,

when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not

well.

My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of

my

feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a

monotonous

life, and being "slightly dyspeptic." I am assured by my

renowned

doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no

stronger description, and I quote his own from his written

answer to

my request for it.

As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took

stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept

them

away from mine by knowing as little about them as was

possible in

the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict

of

Wilful Murder had been found against the suspected murderer,

and

that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew

385



that

his trial had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central

Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of

time

for the preparation of the defence. I may further have known,

but I

believe I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to which

his

trial stood postponed would come on.

My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on one

floor.

With the last there is no communication but through the

bedroom.

True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the

staircase;

but a part of the fitting of my bath has been--and had then

been for

some years--fixed across it. At the same period, and as a part

of

the same arrangement,--the door had been nailed up and

canvased

over.

386



I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some

directions

to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards the

only

available door of communication with the dressing-room, and it

was

closed. My servant's back was towards that door. While I was

speaking to him, I saw it open, and a man look in, who very

earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the

man who

had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face

was of

the colour of impure wax.

The figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the door.

With

no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I

opened

the dressing-room door, and looked in. I had a lighted candle

already in my hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing the

figure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there.

Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to

him, and

said: "Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I

387



fancied

I saw a--" As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a

sudden

start he trembled violently, and said, "O Lord, yes, sir! A dead

man beckoning!"

Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and

attached

servant for more than twenty years, had any impression

whatever of

having seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in

him

was so startling, when I touched him, that I fully believe he

derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that

instant.

I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram,

and

was glad to take one myself. Of what had preceded that night's

phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I

was

absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before,

except on

the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when

beckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up

388



at

me as I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on

the

first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory,

and

that on the second occasion it had made sure of being

immediately

remembered.

I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty,

difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight

I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John

Derrick's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.

This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation

at

the door between its bearer and my servant. It was a summons

to me

to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central

Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before been

summoned

on such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew. He believed--I am

not

certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise--that that

class of Jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification

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than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons.

The

man who served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had

said

that my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to him;

there the

summons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and

not at

his.

For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this

call, or

take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest

mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of

that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I

make

here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my

life,

that I would go.

The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of

November.

There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became

positively

black and in the last degree oppressive East of Temple Bar. I

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found

the passages and staircases of the Court-House flaringly lighted

with gas, and the Court itself similarly illuminated. I THINK

that,

until I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its

crowded state, I did not know that the Murderer was to be tried

that

day. I THINK that, until I was so helped into the Old Court with

considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two

Courts

sitting my summons would take me. But this must not be

received as

a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my

mind

on either point.

I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting,

and I

looked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud of

fog

and breath that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapour

hanging

like a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed

the

stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in

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the

street; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a

shrill

whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally

pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered,

and

took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed. The

direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He appeared

there. And in that same instant I recognised in him the first of

the two men who had gone down Piccadilly.

If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have

answered to

it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel,

and I was by that time able to say, "Here!" Now, observe. As I

stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on

attentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently

agitated,

and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner's wish to challenge

me

was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the

attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his

client,

and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman,

that

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the prisoner's first affrighted words to him were, "AT ALL

HAZARDS,

CHALLENGE THAT MAN!" But that, as he would give no reason

for it,

and admitted that he had not even known my name until he

heard it

called and I appeared, it was not done.

Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid

reviving

the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a

detailed

account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my

narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the

ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept

together,

as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is in

that, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader.

It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I

beg

attention.

I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of

the

trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the

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church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my

brother

jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I

counted them several times, yet always with the same

difficulty. In

short, I made them one too many.

I touched the brother jurymen whose place was next me, and I

whispered to him, "Oblige me by counting us." He looked

surprised

by the request, but turned his head and counted. "Why," says

he,

suddenly, "we are Thirt-; but no, it's not possible. No. We are

twelve."

According to my counting that day, we were always right in

detail,

but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no

appearance--no figure--to account for it; but I had now an

inward

foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming.

The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one

large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the

charge

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and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-

keeping.

I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He

was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to

hear) much respected in the City. He had an agreeable

presence,

good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice.

His

name was Mr. Harker.

When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker's bed

was

drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not

being

disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I

went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As

Mr.

Harker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar

shiver crossed him, and he said, "Who is this?"

Following Mr. Harker's eyes, and looking along the room, I saw

again

the figure I expected,--the second of the two men who had

gone down

Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and

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looked round at Mr. Harker. He was quite unconcerned,

laughed, and

said in a pleasant way, "I thought for a moment we had a

thirteenth

juryman, without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight."

Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a

walk

with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did.

It

stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven

brother

jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the right-hand

side

of the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next

bed.

It seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down

pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or

of

my bed, which was that nearest to Mr. Harker's. It seemed to

go out

where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an

aerial

flight of stairs.

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Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present

had

dreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr.

Harker.

I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone

down

Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been

borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But

even

this took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all

prepared.

On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution

was

drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing

from

his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards

found in

a hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was

put in

evidence. Having been identified by the witness under

examination,

it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be

inspected by the Jury. As an officer in a black gown was making

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his

way with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had

gone

down Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd, caught the

miniature from the officer, and gave it to me with his own

hands, at

the same time saying, in a low and hollow tone,--before I saw

the

miniature, which was in a locket,--"I WAS YOUNGER THEN, AND

MY FACE

WAS NOT THEN DRAINED OF BLOOD." It also came between

me and the

brother juryman to whom I would have given the miniature,

and

between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have

given it,

and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back

into

my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this.

At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr.

Harker's custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the

day's proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for

the

prosecution being closed, and we having that side of the

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question in

a completed shape before us, our discussion was more

animated and

serious. Among our number was a vestryman,--the densest

idiot I

have ever seen at large,--who met the plainest evidence with

the

most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two

flabby

parochial parasites; all the three impanelled from a district so

delivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their

own

trial for five hundred Murders. When these mischievous

blockheads

were at their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some

of us

were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man.

He

stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going

towards

them, and striking into the conversation, he immediately

retired.

This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances,

confined

to that long room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot

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of my

brother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the

murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison of

notes was

going against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to

me.

It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the

miniature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the

Appearance in Court. Three changes occurred now that we

entered on

the case for the defence. Two of them I will mention together,

first. The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there

addressed itself to me, but always to the person who was

speaking at

the time. For instance: the throat of the murdered man had

been

cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defence, it

was

suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At

that

very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful

condition

referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the speaker's

elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the

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right

hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker

himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-

inflicted

by either hand. For another instance: a witness to character, a

woman, deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of

mankind.

The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking

her full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil

countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger.

The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as

the most

marked and striking of all. I do not theorise upon it; I

accurately

state it, and there leave it. Although the Appearance was not

itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to

such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or

disturbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were

prevented,

by laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself

to

others, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly

overshadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the

defence

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suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at

the

learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed

throat,

it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a

few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his

forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale.

When the

witness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her

eyes most

certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest

in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face. Two

additional illustrations will suffice. On the eighth day of the

trial, after the pause which was every day made early in the

afternoon for a few minutes' rest and refreshment, I came back

into

Court with the rest of the Jury some little time before the return

of the Judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I

thought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my

eyes

to the gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very

decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had

resumed

their seats or not. Immediately afterwards that woman

screamed,

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fainted, and was carried out. So with the venerable, sagacious,

and

patient Judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over,

and

he settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered

man,

entering by the Judges' door, advanced to his Lordship's desk,

and

looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which

he

was turning. A change came over his Lordship's face; his hand

stopped; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well, passed over

him;

he faltered, "Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments. I am

somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;" and did not recover

until

he had drunk a glass of water.

Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten

days,--the

same Judges and others on the bench, the same Murderer in

the dock,

the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and

answer

rising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of the

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Judge's

pen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled

at

the same hour when there had been any natural light of day,

the same

foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the

same

rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same

footmarks of

turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the

same

keys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors,--through all

the

wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been

Foreman of

the Jury for a vast cried of time, and Piccadilly had flourished

coevally with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace

of his

distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct

than

anybody else. I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never

once saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the

murdered man

look at the Murderer. Again and again I wondered, "Why does

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he

not?" But he never did.

Nor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature,

until

the last closing minutes of the trial arrived. We retired to

consider, at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic

vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much

trouble

that we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain

extracts

from the Judge's notes re-read. Nine of us had not the smallest

doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any one in

the

Court; the dunder-headed triumvirate, having no idea but

obstruction, disputed them for that very reason. At length we

prevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten

minutes

past twelve.

The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the

Jury-box,

on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes

rested

on me with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly

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shook a

great gray veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time,

over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict, "Guilty,"

the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty.

The Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage,

whether

he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be

passed

upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described

in the

leading newspapers of the following day as "a few rambling,

incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood

to

complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman

of

the Jury was prepossessed against him." The remarkable

declaration

that he really made was this: "MY LORD, I KNEW I WAS A

DOOMED MAN,

Documents

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by Montague Rhodes James