The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories
steady. It had been steady the whole time, and the air had been
undisturbed by any movement whatsoever. Palsied with terror, Aunt Julia,
without waiting for her companion, began fumbling her way downstairs;
she was crying gently to herself, and when Shorthouse put his arm round
her and half carried her he felt that she was trembling like a leaf. He
went into the little room and picked up the cloak from the floor, and,
arm in arm, walking very slowly, without speaking a word or looking once
behind them, they marched down the three flights into the hall.
In the hall they saw nothing, but the whole way down the stairs they
were conscious that someone followed them; step by step; when they went
faster IT was left behind, and when they went more slowly IT caught them
up. But never once did they look behind to see; and at each turning of
the staircase they lowered their eyes for fear of the following horror
they might see upon the stairs above.
With trembling hands Shorthouse opened the front door, and they walked
out into the moonlight and drew a deep breath of the cool night air
blowing in from the sea.
A HAUNTED ISLAND
The following events occurred on a small island of isolated position in
a large Canadian lake, to whose cool waters the inhabitants of Montreal
and Toronto flee for rest and recreation in the hot months. It is only
to be regretted that events of such peculiar interest to the genuine
student of the psychical should be entirely uncorroborated. Such
unfortunately, however, is the case.
Our own party of nearly twenty had returned to Montreal that very day,
and I was left in solitary possession for a week or two longer, in order
to accomplish some important "reading" for the law which I had foolishly
neglected during the summer.
It was late in September, and the big trout and maskinonge were stirring
themselves in the depths of the lake, and beginning slowly to move up to
the surface waters as the north winds and early frosts lowered their
temperature. Already the maples were crimson and gold, and the wild
laughter of the loons echoed in sheltered bays that never knew their
strange cry in the summer.
With a whole island to oneself, a two-storey cottage, a canoe, and only
the chipmunks, and the farmer's weekly visit with eggs and bread, to
disturb one, the opportunities for hard reading might be very great. It
all depends!
The rest of the party had gone off with many warnings to beware of
Indians, and not to stay late enough to be the victim of a frost that
thinks nothing of forty below zero. After they had gone, the loneliness
of the situation made itself unpleasantly felt. There were no other
islands within six or seven miles, and though the mainland forests lay a
couple of miles behind me, they stretched for a very great distance
unbroken by any signs of human habitation. But, though the island was
completely deserted and silent, the rocks and trees that had echoed
human laughter and voices almost every hour of the day for two months
could not fail to retain some memories of it all; and I was not
surprised to fancy I heard a shout or a cry as I passed from rock to
rock, and more than once to imagine that I heard my own name called
aloud.
In the cottage there were six tiny little bedrooms divided from one
another by plain unvarnished partitions of pine. A wooden bedstead, a
mattress, and a chair, stood in each room, but I only found two mirrors,
and one of these was broken.
The boards creaked a good deal as I moved about, and the signs of
occupation were so recent that I could hardly believe I was alone. I
half expected to find someone left behind, still trying to crowd into a
box more than it would hold. The door of one room was stiff, and refused
for a moment to open, and it required very little persuasion to imagine
someone was holding the handle on the inside, and that when it opened I
should meet a pair of human eyes.
A thorough search of the floor led me to select as my own sleeping
quarters a little room with a diminutive balcony over the verandah roof.
The room was very small, but the bed was large, and had the best
mattress of them all. It was situated directly over the sitting-room
where I should live and do my "reading," and the miniature window looked
out to the rising sun. With the exception of a narrow path which led
from the front door and verandah through the trees to the boat-landing,
the island was densely covered with maples, hemlocks, and cedars. The
trees gathered in round the cottage so closely that the slightest wind
made the branches scrape the roof and tap the wooden walls. A few
moments after sunset the darkness became impenetrable, and ten yards
beyond the glare of the lamps that shone through the sitting-room
windows--of which there were four--you could not see an inch before your
nose, nor move a step without running up against a tree.
The rest of that day I spent moving my belongings from my tent to the
sitting-room, taking stock of the contents of the larder, and chopping
enough wood for the stove to last me for a week. After that, just before
sunset, I went round the island a couple of times in my canoe for
precaution's sake. I had never dreamed of doing this before, but when a
man is alone he does things that never occur to him when he is one of a
large party.
How lonely the island seemed when I landed again! The sun was down, and
twilight is unknown in these northern regions. The darkness comes up at
once. The canoe safely pulled up and turned over on her face, I groped
my way up the little narrow pathway to the verandah. The six lamps were
soon burning merrily in the front room; but in the kitchen, where I
"dined," the shadows were so gloomy, and the lamplight was so
inadequate, that the stars could be seen peeping through the cracks
between the rafters.
I turned in early that night. Though it was calm and there was no wind,
the creaking of my bedstead and the musical gurgle of the water over the
rocks below were not the only sounds that reached my ears. As I lay
awake, the appalling emptiness of the house grew upon me. The corridors
and vacant rooms seemed to echo innumerable footsteps, shufflings, the
rustle of skirts, and a constant undertone of whispering. When sleep at
length overtook me, the breathings and noises, however, passed gently to
mingle with the voices of my dreams.
A week passed by, and the "reading" progressed favourably. On the tenth
day of my solitude, a strange thing happened. I awoke after a good
night's sleep to find myself possessed with a marked repugnance for my
room. The air seemed to stifle me. The more I tried to define the cause
of this dislike, the more unreasonable it appeared. There was something
about the room that made me afraid. Absurd as it seems, this feeling
clung to me obstinately while dressing, and more than once I caught
myself shivering, and conscious of an inclination to get out of the room
as quickly as possible. The more I tried to laugh it away, the more real
it became; and when at last I was dressed, and went out into the
passage, and downstairs into the kitchen, it was with feelings of
relief, such as I might imagine would accompany one's escape from the
presence of a dangerous contagious disease.
While cooking my breakfast, I carefully recalled every night spent in
the room, in the hope that I might in some way connect the dislike I now
felt with some disagreeable incident that had occurred in it. But the
only thing I could recall was one stormy night when I suddenly awoke and
heard the boards creaking so loudly in the corridor that I was convinced
there were people in the house. So certain was I of this, that I had
descended the stairs, gun in hand, only to find the doors and windows
securely fastened, and the mice and black-beetles in sole possession of
the floor. This was certainly not sufficient to account for the strength
of my feelings.
The morning hours I spent in steady reading; and when I broke off in the
middle of the day for a swim and luncheon, I was very much surprised,
if not a little alarmed, to find that my dislike for the room had, if
anything, grown stronger. Going upstairs to get a book, I experienced
the most marked aversion to entering the room, and while within I was
conscious all the time of an uncomfortable feeling that was half
uneasiness and half apprehension. The result of it was that, instead of
reading, I spent the afternoon on the water paddling and fishing, and
when I got home about sundown, brought with me half a dozen delicious
black bass for the supper-table and the larder.
As sleep was an important matter to me at this time, I had decided that
if my aversion to the room was so strongly marked on my return as it had
been before, I would move my bed down into the sitting-room, and sleep
there. This was, I argued, in no sense a concession to an absurd and
fanciful fear, but simply a precaution to ensure a good night's sleep. A
bad night involved the loss of the next day's reading,--a loss I was not
prepared to incur.
I accordingly moved my bed downstairs into a corner of the sitting-room
facing the door, and was moreover uncommonly glad when the operation
was completed, and the door of the bedroom closed finally upon the
shadows, the silence, and the strange _fear_ that shared the room with
them.
The croaking stroke of the kitchen clock sounded the hour of eight as I
finished washing up my few dishes, and closing the kitchen door behind
me, passed into the front room. All the lamps were lit, and their
reflectors, which I had polished up during the day, threw a blaze of
light into the room.
Outside the night was still and warm. Not a breath of air was stirring;
the waves were silent, the trees motionless, and heavy clouds hung like
an oppressive curtain over the heavens. The darkness seemed to have
rolled up with unusual swiftness, and not the faintest glow of colour
remained to show where the sun had set. There was present in the
atmosphere that ominous and overwhelming silence which so often precedes
the most violent storms.
I sat down to my books with my brain unusually clear, and in my heart
the pleasant satisfaction of knowing that five black bass were lying in
the ice-house, and that to-morrow morning the old farmer would arrive
with fresh bread and eggs. I was soon absorbed in my books.
As the night wore on the silence deepened. Even the chipmunks were
still; and the boards of the floors and walls ceased creaking. I read on
steadily till, from the gloomy shadows of the kitchen, came the hoarse
sound of the clock striking nine. How loud the strokes sounded! They
were like blows of a big hammer. I closed one book and opened another,
feeling that I was just warming up to my work.
This, however, did not last long. I presently found that I was reading
the same paragraphs over twice, simple paragraphs that did not require
such effort. Then I noticed that my mind began to wander to other
things, and the effort to recall my thoughts became harder with each
digression. Concentration was growing momentarily more difficult.
Presently I discovered that I had turned over two pages instead of one,
and had not noticed my mistake until I was well down the page. This was
becoming serious. What was the disturbing influence? It could not be
physical fatigue. On the contrary, my mind was unusually alert, and in a
more receptive condition than usual. I made a new and determined effort
to read, and for a short time succeeded in giving my whole attention to
my subject. But in a very few moments again I found myself leaning back
in my chair, staring vacantly into space.
Something was evidently at work in my sub-consciousness. There was
something I had neglected to do. Perhaps the kitchen door and windows