The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories
for he loved this wood, and used to say he met all his old friends
there, and would one day walk in there never to return. His wife tried
to break him gently off this habit, but he always had his own way; and
once, when she followed and found him standing under a great pine in the
thickest portion of the grove, talking earnestly to someone she could
not see, he turned and rebuked her very gently, but in such a way that
she never repeated the experiment, saying--
"You should never interrupt me, Mary, when I am talking with the others;
for they teach me, remember, wonderful things, and I must learn all I
can before I go to join them."
This story went like wild-fire through the village, increasing with
every repetition, until at length everyone was able to give an accurate
description of the great veiled figures the woman declared she had seen
moving among the trees where her husband stood. The innocent pine-grove
now became positively haunted, and the title of "Wood of the Dead" clung
naturally as if it had been applied to it in the ordinary course of
events by the compilers of the Ordnance Survey.
On the evening of his ninetieth birthday the old man went up to his wife
and kissed her. His manner was loving, and very gentle, and there was
something about him besides, she declared afterwards, that made her
slightly in awe of him and feel that he was almost more of a spirit than
a man.
He kissed her tenderly on both cheeks, but his eyes seemed to look
right through her as he spoke.
"Dearest wife," he said, "I am saying good-bye to you, for I am now
going into the Wood of the Dead, and I shall not return. Do not follow
me, or send to search, but be ready soon to come upon the same journey
yourself."
The good woman burst into tears and tried to hold him, but he easily
slipped from her hands, and she was afraid to follow him. Slowly she saw
him cross the field in the sunshine, and then enter the cool shadows of
the grove, where he disappeared from her sight.
That same night, much later, she woke to find him lying peacefully by
her side in bed, with one arm stretched out towards her, _dead_. Her
story was half believed, half doubted at the time, but in a very few
years afterwards it evidently came to be accepted by all the
countryside. A funeral service was held to which the people flocked in
great numbers, and everyone approved of the sentiment which led the
widow to add the words, "The Father of the Village," after the usual
texts which appeared upon the stone over his grave.
This, then, was the story I pieced together of the village ghost as the
little inn-keeper's daughter told it to me that afternoon in the
parlour of the inn.
"But you're not the first to say you've seen him," the girl concluded;
"and your description is just what we've always heard, and that window,
they say, was just where he used to sit and think, and think, when he
was alive, and sometimes, they say, to cry for hours together."
"And would you feel afraid if you had seen him?" I asked, for the girl
seemed strangely moved and interested in the whole story.
"I think so," she answered timidly. "Surely, if he spoke to me. He did
speak to _you_, didn't he, sir?" she asked after a slight pause.
"He said he had come for someone."
"Come for someone," she repeated. "Did he say--" she went on
falteringly.
"No, he did not say for whom," I said quickly, noticing the sudden
shadow on her face and the tremulous voice.
"Are you really sure, sir?"
"Oh, quite sure," I answered cheerfully. "I did not even ask him." The
girl looked at me steadily for nearly a whole minute as though there
were many things she wished to tell me or to ask. But she said nothing,
and presently picked up her tray from the table and walked slowly out
of the room.
Instead of keeping to my original purpose and pushing on to the next
village over the hills, I ordered a room to be prepared for me at the
inn, and that afternoon I spent wandering about the fields and lying
under the fruit trees, watching the white clouds sailing out over the
sea. The Wood of the Dead I surveyed from a distance, but in the village
I visited the stone erected to the memory of the "Father of the
Village"--who was thus, evidently, no mythical personage--and saw also
the monuments of his fine unselfish spirit: the schoolhouse he built,
the library, the home for the aged poor, and the tiny hospital.
That night, as the clock in the church tower was striking half-past
eleven, I stealthily left the inn and crept through the dark orchard and
over the hayfield in the direction of the hill whose southern slope was
clothed with the Wood of the Dead. A genuine interest impelled me to the
adventure, but I also was obliged to confess to a certain sinking in my
heart as I stumbled along over the field in the darkness, for I was
approaching what might prove to be the birth-place of a real country
myth, and a spot already lifted by the imaginative thoughts of a
considerable number of people into the region of the haunted and
ill-omened.
The inn lay below me, and all round it the village clustered in a soft
black shadow unrelieved by a single light. The night was moonless, yet
distinctly luminous, for the stars crowded the sky. The silence of deep
slumber was everywhere; so still, indeed, that every time my foot kicked
against a stone I thought the sound must be heard below in the village
and waken the sleepers.
I climbed the hill slowly, thinking chiefly of the strange story of the
noble old man who had seized the opportunity to do good to his fellows
the moment it came his way, and wondering why the causes that operate
ceaselessly behind human life did not always select such admirable
instruments. Once or twice a night-bird circled swiftly over my head,
but the bats had long since gone to rest, and there was no other sign of
life stirring.
Then, suddenly, with a singular thrill of emotion, I saw the first trees
of the Wood of the Dead rise in front of me in a high black wall. Their
crests stood up like giant spears against the starry sky; and though
there was no perceptible movement of the air on my cheek I heard a
faint, rushing sound among their branches as the night breeze passed to
and fro over their countless little needles. A remote, hushed murmur
rose overhead and died away again almost immediately; for in these trees
the wind seems to be never absolutely at rest, and on the calmest day
there is always a sort of whispering music among their branches.
For a moment I hesitated on the edge of this dark wood, and listened
intently. Delicate perfumes of earth and bark stole out to meet me.
Impenetrable darkness faced me. Only the consciousness that I was
obeying an order, strangely given, and including a mighty privilege,
enabled me to find the courage to go forward and step in boldly under
the trees.
Instantly the shadows closed in upon me and "something" came forward to
meet me from the centre of the darkness. It would be easy enough to meet
my imagination half-way with fact, and say that a cold hand grasped my
own and led me by invisible paths into the unknown depths of the grove;
but at any rate, without stumbling, and always with the positive
knowledge that I was going straight towards the desired object, I
pressed on confidently and securely into the wood. So dark was it that,
at first, not a single star-beam pierced the roof of branches overhead;
and, as we moved forward side by side, the trees shifted silently past
us in long lines, row upon row, squadron upon squadron, like the units
of a vast, soundless army.
And, at length, we came to a comparatively open space where the trees
halted upon us for a while, and, looking up, I saw the white river of
the sky beginning to yield to the influence of a new light that now
seemed spreading swiftly across the heavens.
"It is the dawn coming," said the voice at my side that I certainly
recognised, but which seemed almost like a whispering from the trees,
"and we are now in the heart of the Wood of the Dead."
We seated ourselves on a moss-covered boulder and waited the coming of
the sun. With marvellous swiftness, it seemed to me, the light in the
east passed into the radiance of early morning, and when the wind awoke
and began to whisper in the tree tops, the first rays of the risen sun
fell between the trunks and rested in a circle of gold at our feet.
"Now, come with me," whispered my companion in the same deep voice, "for
time has no existence here, and that which I would show you is already
_there_!"
We trod gently and silently over the soft pine needles. Already the sun
was high over our heads, and the shadows of the trees coiled closely
about their feet. The wood became denser again, but occasionally we
passed through little open bits where we could smell the hot sunshine
and the dry, baked pine needles. Then, presently, we came to the edge of
the grove, and I saw a hayfield lying in the blaze of day, and two
horses basking lazily with switching tails in the shafts of a laden
hay-waggon.
So complete and vivid was the sense of reality, that I remember the
grateful realisation of the cool shade where we sat and looked out upon
the hot world beyond.
The last pitchfork had tossed up its fragrant burden, and the great
horses were already straining in the shafts after the driver, as he
walked slowly in front with one hand upon their bridles. He was a
stalwart fellow, with sunburned neck and hands. Then, for the first
time, I noticed, perched aloft upon the trembling throne of hay, the
figure of a slim young girl. I could not see her face, but her brown
hair escaped in disorder from a white sun-bonnet, and her still browner
hands held a well-worn hay rake. She was laughing and talking with the
driver, and he, from time to time, cast up at her ardent glances of
admiration--glances that won instant smiles and soft blushes in
response.
The cart presently turned into the roadway that skirted the edge of the
wood where we were sitting. I watched the scene with intense interest
and became so much absorbed in it that I quite forgot the manifold,
strange steps by which I was permitted to become a spectator.
"Come down and walk with me," cried the young fellow, stopping a moment
in front of the horses and opening wide his arms. "Jump! and I'll catch
you!"
"Oh, oh," she laughed, and her voice sounded to me as the happiest,
merriest laughter I had ever heard from a girl's throat. "Oh, oh! that's
all very well. But remember I'm Queen of the Hay, and I must ride!"
"Then I must come and ride beside you," he cried, and began at once to
climb up by way of the driver's seat. But, with a peal of silvery
laughter, she slipped down easily over the back of the hay to escape
him, and ran a little way along the road. I could see her quite clearly,
and noticed the charming, natural grace of her movements, and the
loving expression in her eyes as she looked over her shoulder to make
sure he was following. Evidently, she did not wish to escape for long,
certainly not for ever.
In two strides the big, brown swain was after her, leaving the horses to
do as they pleased. Another second and his arms would have caught the
slender waist and pressed the little body to his heart. But, just at
that instant, the old man beside me uttered a peculiar cry. It was low
and thrilling, and it went through me like a sharp sword.
HE had called her by her own name--and she had heard.
For a second she halted, glancing back with frightened eyes. Then, with
a brief cry of despair, the girl swerved aside and dived in swiftly
among the shadows of the trees.
But the young man saw the sudden movement and cried out to her
passionately--
"Not that way, my love! Not that way! It's the Wood of the Dead!"