Twenty-Five Ghost Stories
reached that portion of the long passage it ceased momentarily, and I
saw, as distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life, by moonlight, a
figure of a man with marked features, in what appeared to be a fur cap
drawn over the brows.
It stood in the embrasure of the window, and the outline of the face was
in silhouette; then it moved on, and as it moved I again heard the
tread.
I was as certain as I could be that the thing, whatever it was, or the
person, whoever he was, was approaching my bed.
I threw myself back in the bed, and as I did see a mass of charred wood
on the hearth fell down and sent up a flash of--I fancy sparks, that
gave out a glare into the darkness, and by that--red as blood--I saw a
face near me.
With a cry, over which I had as little control as the scream uttered by
a sleeper in the agony of a nightmare, I called, “Who are you?”
There was an instant during which my hair bristled on my head, as in the
horror of the darkness I prepared to grapple with the being at my side;
when a board creaked as if someone had moved, and I heard the footsteps
retreat, and again the click of the latch.
The next instant there was a rush on the stairs and Lynton burst into
the room, just as he had sprung out of bed, crying: “For God’s sake,
what is the matter? Are you ill?”
I could not answer. Lynton struck a light and leaned over the bed. Then
I seized him by the arm, and said, without moving: “There has been
something in this room--gone in thither.”
The words were hardly out of my mouth when Lynton, following the
direction of my eyes, had sprung to the end of the corridor and thrown
open the door there.
He went into the room beyond, looked round it, returned, and said: “You
must have been dreaming.”
By this time I was out of bed.
“Look for yourself,” said he, and he led me into the little room. It was
bare, with cupboards and boxes, a sort of lumber place. “There is
nothing beyond this,” said he, “no door, no staircase. It is a blind
way.” Then he added: “Now pull on your dressing-gown and come downstairs
to my sanctum.”
I followed him, and after he had spoken to Lady Lynton, who was standing
with the door of her room ajar in a state of great agitation, he turned
to me, and said: “No one can have been in your room. You see, my and my
wife’s apartments are close below, and no one could come up the spiral
staircase without passing my door. You must have had a nightmare.
Directly you screamed I rushed up the steps, and met no one descending;
and there is no place of concealment in the lumber-room at the end of
the gallery.”
Then he took me into his private snuggery, blew up the fire, lighted a
lamp, and said: “I shall be really grateful if you will say nothing
about this. There are some in the house and neighborhood who are silly
enough as it is. You stay here, and if you do not feel inclined to go to
bed, read--here are books. I must go to Lady Lynton, who is a good deal
frightened, and does not like to be left alone.”
He then went to his bedroom.
Sleep, as far as I was concerned, was out of the question, nor do I
think Sir Francis and his wife slept much, either.
I made up the fire, and after a time took up a book, and tried to read,
but it was useless.
I sat absorbed in thoughts and questionings till I heard the servants
stirring in the morning. I went to my own room, left the candle burning,
and got into bed. I had just fallen asleep when my servant brought me a
cup of tea at eight o’clock.
At breakfast Colonel Hampshire and his wife asked if anything had
happened in the night, as they had been much disturbed by noises
overhead, to which Lynton replied that I had not been very well, and had
an attack of cramp, and that he had been upstairs to look after me. From
his manner I could see that he wished me to be silent, and I said
nothing accordingly.
In the afternoon, when everyone had gone out, Sir Francis took me into
his snuggery, and said: “Halifax, I am very sorry about that matter last
night. It is quite true, what my brother said, that steps have been
heard about this house, but I never gave heed to such things, putting
all noises down to rats. But after your experiences I feel that it is
due to you to tell you something, and also to make to you an
explanation. There is--there was--no one in the room at the end of the
corridor, except the skeleton that was discovered in the chalk-pit when
you were here many years ago. I confess I had not paid much heed to it.
My archæological fancies passed; I had no visits from anthropologists;
the bones and skull were never shown to experts, but remain packed in a
chest in that lumber-room. I confess I ought to have buried them, having
no more scientific use for them, but I did not--on my word, I forgot all
about them, or, at least, gave no heed to them. However, what you have
gone through, and have described to me, has made me uneasy, and has also
given me a suspicion that I can account for that body in a manner that
had never occurred to me before.”
After a pause, he added: “What I am going to tell you is known to no one
else, and must not be mentioned by you--anyhow, in my lifetime. You know
now that, owing to the death of my father when quite young, I and my
brother and sister were brought up here with our grandfather, Sir
Richard. He was an old, imperious, hot-tempered man. I will tell you
what I have made out of a matter that was a mystery for long, and I will
tell you afterwards how I came to unravel it. My grandfather was in the
habit of going out at night with a young under-keeper, of whom he was
very fond, to look after the game and see if any poachers, whom he
regarded as his natural enemies, were about.
“One night, as I suppose, my grandfather had been out with the young man
in question, and, returning by the plantations, where the hill is
steepest, and not far from the chalk-pit you
remarked on yesterday, they came upon a man who, though not actually
belonging to the country, was well known in it as a sort of traveling
tinker of indifferent character and a notorious poacher. Mind this, I am
not sure it was at the place I mention; I only now surmise it. On the
particular night in question, my grandfather and the keeper must have
caught this man setting snares; there must have been a tussle, in the
course of which, as subsequent circumstances have led me to imagine, the
man showed fight, and was knocked down by one or the other of the
two--my grandfather or the keeper. I believe that after having made
various attempts to restore him, they found that the man was actually
dead.
“They were both in great alarm and concern--my grandfather especially.
He had been prominent in putting down some factory riots, and had given
orders to the military to fire, whereby several lives had been lost.
There was a vast outcry against him, and a certain political party had
denounced him as an assassin. No man was more vituperated; yet now, in
my conscience, I believe he acted with both discretion and pluck, and
arrested a mischievous movement that might have led to much bloodshed.
Be that as it may, my impression is that he lost his head over this
fatal affair with the tinker, and that he and the keeper together buried
the body secretly, not far from the place where he was killed. I now
think it was in the chalk-pit, and that the skeleton found years after
there belonged to this man.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, as at once my mind rushed back to the
figure with the fur cap that I had seen against the window.
Sir Francis went on: “The sudden disappearance of the tramp, in view of
his well-known habits and wandering mode of life, did not for some time
excite surprise; but, later on, one or two circumstances having led to
suspicion, an inquiry was set on foot, and among others, my
grandfather’s keepers were examined before the magistrates. It was
remembered afterwards that the under-keeper in question was absent at
the time of the inquiry, my grandfather having sent him with some dogs
to a brother-in-law of his who lived upon the moors; but whether anyone
noticed the fact, or if they did, preferred to be silent, no
observations were made. Nothing came of the investigation, and the whole
subject would have been dropped if it had not been that two years later,
for some reasons I do not understand, but at the instigation of a
magistrate recently imported into the division, whom my grandfather
greatly disliked, and who was opposed to him in politics, a fresh
inquiry was instituted. In the course of that inquiry it transpired
that, owing to some unguarded words dropped by the under-keeper, a
warrant was about to be issued for his arrest. My grandfather, who had a
fit of the gout, was away from home at the time, but on hearing the news
he came home at once. The evening he returned he had a long interview
with the young man, who left the house after he had supped in the
servants’ hall. It was observed that he looked much depressed. The
warrant was issued the next day, but in the meantime the keeper had
disappeared. My grandfather gave orders to his people to do everything
in their power to assist the authorities in the search that was at once
set on foot, but was unable himself to take any share in it.
“No trace of the keeper was found, although at a subsequent period
rumors circulated that he had been heard of in America. But the man
having been unmarried, he gradually dropped out of remembrance, and as
my grandfather never allowed the subject to be mentioned in his
presence, I should probably never have known anything about it but for
the vague tradition which always attaches to such events, and for this
fact, that after my grandfather’s death, a letter came addressed to him
from somewhere in the United States from some one--the name different
from that of the keeper--but alluding to the past, and implying the
presence of a common secret, and, of course, with it came a request for
money. I replied, mentioning the death of Sir Richard, and asking for
an explanation. I did get an answer, and it is from that that I am able
to fill in so much of the story. But I never learned where the man had
been killed and buried, and my next letter to the fellow was returned
with ‘deceased’ written across it. Somehow, it never occurred to me till
I heard your story that possibly the skeleton in the chalk-pit might be
that of the poaching tinker. I will now most assuredly have it buried in
the churchyard.”
“That certainly ought to be done,” said I.
“And,” said Sir Francis, after a pause, “I give you my word--after the
burial of the bones, and you are gone, I will sleep for a week in the
bed in the gallery, and report to you if I see or hear anything. If all
be quiet, then--well, you form your own conclusions.”
I left a day after. Before long I got a letter from my friend, brief,
but to the point: “All quiet, old boy; come again.”
THE GHOST OF THE COUNT.
Not far from the Alameda, in the City of Mexico, there is a great old
stone building, in which once lived a very wealthy and wicked Spanish
count. The house has about four floors, and ninety rooms, more or less.
The entire fourth floor is rented and occupied by a big American firm,
and their bookkeeper, an American girl, has given us the following true
account of the ghost that for years haunted the building. The second
floor is unoccupied, as no one cares to live there for obvious reasons.
And the bottom floor is also unoccupied, save for lumber rooms, empty
boxes and crates and barrels. And last of all is the great patio with
its tiled floor, where secretly in the night a duel was fought to the
death by the wicked count and a famous Austrian prince, who was one of
Maximilian’s men. The count was killed.