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L161–H41





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N )
WEIRD STORIES,


In One Handsome Volume, Crown 8vo, Price 6s.
Second and Cheap Edition of
THE SENIOR PARTNER.
By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL,
AUTHOR OF “GEORGE GEITH OF FEN COURT,” &c.
In Two Volumes, Crown 8vo, Price 12s.
Second and Cheap Edition of
LADY BEAUTY;
OR.
CHARMING TO HER LATEST DAY.
By ALAN MUIR,
AUTHOR of “CHILDREN'S CHILDREN,”
“HAROLD SAxON,” &c.
Book the First.—LADY BEAUTY'S MOTHER.
Book the Second.--LADY BEAUTY'S SISTERS.
Book the Third.—LADY BEAUTY'S LOVERS.
Book the Fourth.—LADY BEAUTY'S CHOICE.
Book the Fifth.—LADY BEAUTY'S SORROW.
Book the Sixth.—LADY BEAUTY'S JOY.
By the same Author, in One Volume, Price 6s.
HEARTH R U G FAR C E S.
I. PENTAGON TERRACE.
II. MRS. TRUMPET'S TELESCOPE.
III. SELINA'S REVENGE.
| IV. SoLOMON DROOP, THE PILGRIM OF LOVE
(IN THREE FARCES).
LONDON :
JAMES HOGG, 22, EXETER ST., STRAND.


WEIRD STORIES,
BY
MRS. J. H. RIDDELL,
AUTHOR of “GEORGE GEITH ;” “THE SENIOR PARTNER,” &c
LONDON :
JAMES HOG G, 22, EXETER STREET, STRAN D.
[All Rights Reserved.]


LONDON:
KELLY & Co., PRINTERs, GATE STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs
AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.


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* ... WALNUT-TREE House . . . . . . . . . 1
*-
* The OPEN DOOR - - - - - - - - - . 48
- Nur-Besh FARM - - - - - - - - . . 104
S THE OLD House IN VAUxHALL WALK - - - - . 175
-
S SANDY THE TINKER . - - - - - - • 9 . 207
C. OLD MRS. JONES . . . . . . . . . . . 280
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WALNUT-TREE HOUSE.
e-E*E*NES-4 ro
CHAPTER I.
TIIE NEW OWNER.
M ANY years ago there stood at the corner
of a street leading out of Upper Ken-
nington Lane a great red brick house, cover.
ing a goodly area of ground, and surrounded by
gardens magnificent in their proportions, when
considered in relation to the populous neigh-
bourhood mentioned.
Originally a place of considerable pretention;
a gentleman's seat in the country probably when
Lambeth Marsh had not a shop in the whole of
it; when Vauxhall Gardens were still in nubibus;
when no South-Western Railway was planned
or thought of; when London was compara-
tively a very small place, and its present suburbs
were mere country villages—hamlets lying
quite remote from the heart of the city.
Once, the house in question had been sur-
rounded by a small park, and at that time there
B


2 WALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
were fish-ponds in the grounds, and quite a
stretch of meadow-land within the walls. Bit
by bit, however, the park had been cut up into
building ground and let off on building leases;
the meadows were covered with bricks and
mortar, shops were run up where cows once
chewed the cud, and the roar and rumble of
London traffic sounded about the old house and
the deserted garden, formerly quiet and silent as
though situated in some remote part of the
country.
Many a time in the course of the genera-
tions that had come and gone, been born and
quried, since the old house was built, the free-
hold it covered changed hands. On most estates
of this kind round London there generally is a
residence, which passes like a horse from
buyer to buyer. When it has served one
man's need it is put up for sale and bid for
by another. When rows and rows of houses,
and line after line of streets, have obliterated
all the familiar marks, it is impossible to
cultivate a sentiment as regards property; and
it is unlikely that the descendants of the first
possessors of Walnut-Tree House who had
grown to be county folk and lived in great
state, oblivious of business people, and enter-
taining a great contempt for trade, knew that
in a very undesirable part of London there


IVALNUT. TREE. House. 3
still stood the residence where the first suc-
cessful man of their family went home each
day from his counting-house over against St.
Mildred's Church, in The Poultry.
One very wet evening, in an autumn the leaves
of which have been dead and gone this
many a year, Walnut-Tree House, standing
grim and lonely in the mournful twilight,
looked more than ordinarily desolate and
deserted.
There was not a sign of life about it; the
shutters were closed—the rusty iron gates were
fast locked—the approach was choked up with
grass and weeds—through no chink did the
light of a single candle flicker. For seven
years it had been given over to rats and mice
and blackbeetles; for seven years no one had
been found to live in it; for seven years it had
remained empty, while its owner wore out exist-
ence in fits of moody dejection or of wild
frenzy in the madhouse close at hand; and now
that owner was dead and buried and for-
gotten, and the new owner was returning to
take possession. This new owner had written
to his lawyers, or rather he had written to the
lawyers of his late relative, begging them to
request the person in charge of the house to
have rooms prepared for his arrival; and, when
the train drew into the station at Waterloo, he


4. WALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
was met by one of the clerks in Messrs. Timp-
son and Co.'s office, who, picking out Mr. Stain-
ton, delivered to that gentleman a letter from
the firm, and said he would wait and hear if
there were any message in reply.
Mr. Stainton read the letter—looked at the
blank flyleaf-and then, turning back to the
first words, read what his solicitors had to say
all through once again, this time aloud.
“The house has stood empty for more than
seven years,” he said, half addressing the clerk
and half speaking to himself. “Must be damp
and uninhabitable; there is no one living on the
premises. Under these circumstances we have
been unable to comply with your directions, and
can only recommend you to go to an hotel till we
are able personally to discuss future arrange-
ments.”
“Humph,” said the new owner, after he had
finished. I'll go and take a look at the place
anyhow. Is it far from here, do you know?” he
asked, turning to the young man from Timpsons'.
“No, Sir; not very far.”
“Can you spare time to come over there with
me?” continued Mr. Stainton.
The young man believed that he could, add-
ing, "If you want to go into the house we had
better call for the key. It is at an Estate
Agent's in the Westminster Bridge Road.”


JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE. 5
“I cannot say I have any great passion for
hotels,” remarked the new owner, as he took his
seat in the cab.
“Indeed, Sir.”
“No; either they don't suit me, or I don't
suit them. I have led a wild sort of life: not
much civilisation in the bush, or at the gold-
fields, I can tell you. Rooms full of furniture,
houses where a fellow must keep to the one
little corner he has hired, seem to choke me.
Then I have not been well, and I can’t stand
noise and the trampling of feet. I had enough
of that on board ship; and I used to lie awake
at nights and think how pleasant it would be to
have a big house all to myself, to do as I iiked
in.”
“Yes, Sir,” agreed the clerk.
“You see, I have been used to roughing it,
and I can get along very well for a night with-
out servants.”
“No doubt, Sir.”
“I suppose the house is in substantial repair
—roof tight, and all that sort of thing?”
“I can’t say, I am sure, Sir.”
“Well, if there is a dry corner where I can
spread a rug, I shall sleep there to-night.”
The clerk coughed. He looked out of the
window, and then he looked at Messrs. Timp-
sons' client.


6 JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
“I do not think,”—he began, apologetically,
and then stopped.
“You don’t think what?” asked the other.
“You’ll excuse me, Sir, but I don't think—I
really do not think, if I were you, I'd go to that
house to-night.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it has not been slept in for nearly
seven years, and it must be blue mouldy with
damp; and if you have been ill, that is all the
more reason you should not run such a risk.
And, besides—”
“Besides”—suggested Mr. Stainton; “Out
with it! Like a postscript, no doubt, that
“besides’ holds the marrow of the argument.”
“The house has stood empty for years, Sir,
because—there is no use in making any secret
of it—the place has a bad name.”
“What sort of a bad name—unhealthy?”
“Oh, no!”
“Haunted?”
The clerk inclined his head. “You have hit
it, Sir,” he said.
“And that is the reason no one has lived
there?”
“We have been quite unable to let the house
on that account.”
“The sooner it gets unhaunted, then, the
better,” retorted Mr. Stainton. “I shall cer-


JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE. 7
tainly stop there to-night. You are not dis-
posed to stay and keep me company, I
suppose?”
With a little gesture of dismay the clerk
drew back. Certainly, this was one of the
most unconventional of clients. The young
man from Timpsons' did not at all know what
to make of him. .
“A rough sort of fellow,” he said afterwards,
when describing the new owner; “boorish;
never mixed with good society, that sort of
thing.” -
He did not in the least understand this rich
man, who treated him as an equal, who objected
to hotels, who didn't mind taking up his abode
in a house where not even a drunken char-
woman could be induced to stop, and who
calmly asked a stranger on whom he had never
set eyes before—a clerk in the respectable office
of Timpson and Co., a young fellow anxious to
rise in the world, careful as to his associates,
particular about the whiteness of his shirts and
the sit of his collar and the cut of his coats—to
“rough" things with him in that dreadful old
dungeon, where, perhaps, he might even be
expected to light a fire.
Still, he did not wish to offend the new
owner. Messrs. Timpson expected him to be a
profitable client; and to that impartial firm the
-"


8 JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
money of a boor would, he knew, seem as good
as the money of a Count.
“I am very sorry,” he stammered; “should
only have felt too much honoured; but the
fact is—previous engagement—”
Mr. Stainton laughed.
“I understand,” he said. “Adventures are
quite as much out of your line as ghosts. And
now tell me about this apparition. Does the
‘old man” Walk?”
“Not that I ever heard of,” answered the other.
“Is it, then, the miserable beggar who tried
to do for himself?”
“It is not the late Mr. Stainton, I believe,”
said the young man, in a tone which mildly
suggested that reference to a client of Timpsons'
as a “miserable beggar” might be considered
bad taste.
“Then who on earth is it?” persisted Mr.
Stainton.
“If you must know, Sir, it is a child—a child
who has driven every tenant in succession out of
the house.” -
The new owner burst into a hearty laugh-
a laugh which gave serious offence to Timpsons'
clerk. -
“That is too good a joke,” said Mr. Stainton.
“I do not know when I heard anything so
delicious.”


JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE 9
“It is a fact, whether it be delicious or not,”
retorted the young man, driven out of all his
former propriety of voice and demeanour by
the comtemptuous ridicule this “digger”
thought fit to cast on his story; “and I, for
one, would not, after all I have heard about
your house, pass a night in it—no, not if any-
body offered me fifty pounds down.” -
“Make your mind easy, my friend,” said the
new owner, quietly. “I am not going to bid for
your company. The child and I can manage,
I'll be bound, to get on very comfortably by
ourselves.”


IO MyT.A.L. NUT. TREE HOUS..
CHA PTER II.
TIIE C II ILD.
T was later on in the same evening; Mr.
Stainton had an hour previously taken pos-
session of Walnut-Tree House, dismissed his cab,
bidden Timpsons' clerk good evening, and, hav-
ing ordered in wood and coals from the nearest
greengrocer, besides various other necessary
articles from various other tradesmen, he now
stood by the front gate waiting the coming of
the goods purchased.
As he waited, he looked up at the house,
which in the uncertain light of the street lamps
appeared gloomier and darker than had been
the case even in the gathering twilight.
The long rows of shuttered windows, the
silent solemnity of the great trees, remnants of
a once goodly avenue that had served to give
its name to Walnut-Tree House; the appalling
silence of everything within the place, when
2Ontrasted with the noise of passing cabs and
whistling street boys, and men trudging home
with unfurled umbrellas and women scudding
along with draggled petticoats, might well have


JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE. 1 I
impressed even an unimpressionable man, and
Edgar Stainton, spite of his hard life and
rough exterior, was impressionable and ima-
ginative.
“It has an “uncanny’ look, certainly,” he
considered; “but is not so cheerless for a lonely
man as the “bush;’ and though I am not over-
tired, I fancy I shall sleep more soundly in my
new home than I did many a night at the gold-
fields. When once I can get a good fire up I
shall be all right. Now, I wonder when those
coals are coming!”
As he turned once again towards the road, he
beheld on its way the sack of fuel with which
the nearest greengrocer said he thought he
could—indeed, said he would—“oblige” him.
A ton—half a ton—quarter of a ton, the green-
grocer affirmed would be impossible until the
next day; but a sack—yes—he would promise
that. Bill should bring it round; and Bill was
told to put his burden on the truck, and twelve
bundles of wood, “and we'll make up the rest
to-morrow,” added Bill's master, with the air of
one who has conferred a favour.
In the distance Mr. Stainton descried a very
grimy Bill, and a very small boy, coming along
with the truck leisurely, as though the load had
been Herculean.
Through the rain he watched the pair ad-


12 WALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
vancing, and greeted Bill with a glad voice of
welcome.
“So you've come at last; that's right. Bet-
ter late than never. Bring them this way, I'll
have this small lot shot in the kitchen for the
night.”
“Begging your pardon, Sir,” answered Bill,
“I don't think you will—that is to say not by
me. As I told our governor, I'll take 'em to
the house as you've sold 'em to the house, but I
won't set a foot inside it.”
“Do you mean to say you are going to leave
them out on the pavement,” asked Mr. Stainton
“Well, Sir, I don't mind taking them to the
front door if it'll be a convenience.”
“That will do. You are a brave lot of
people in these parts I must say.”
“As for that,” retorted Bill, with sack on
back and head bent forward, “I dare say we're
as brave about here as where you come
from.”
“It is not impossible,” retorted Mr. Stainton;
“there are plenty of cowards over there too.”
With a feint of being very much afraid, Bill,
after he had shot his coals on the margin of the
steps, retreated from the door, which stood
partly open, and when the boy who brought up
the wood was again out with the truck, said,
putting his knuckles to his eyebrows—


WALNUT-TREE HOUSE. I3
“Beg pardon, Sir, but I suppose you couldn't
give us a drop of beer? Very wet night, Sir.”
“No, I could not,” answered Mr. Stainton,
very decidedly. “I shall have to shovel these
coals into the house myself; and, as for the
night, it is as wet for me as it is for you.”
Nevertheless, as Bill shuffled along the short
drive—shuffling wearily—like a man who, hav-
ing nearly finished one day's hard work, was
looking forward to beginning another hard day
in the morning, the new owner relented.
“Here,” he said, picking out a sixpence to
give him, “it isn't your fault, I suppose, that you
believe in old women's tales.”
“Thank you kindly, Sir,” Bill answered; “I
am sure I am extremely obliged; but if I was in
your shoes I wouldn't stop in that house—you'll
excuse me, Sir, meaning no offence—but I
wouldn’t; indeed I wouldn't.”
“It seems to have got a good name, at any
rate,” thought Mr. Stainton, while retracing his
steps to the banned tenement. “Let us see
what effect a fire will have in routing the
shadows.”
He entered the house, and, striking a match,
lighted some candles he had brought in with him
from a neighbouring oil-shop.
Years previously the gas company, weary of
receiving no profit from the house, had taken


14 WALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
away their meter and cut off their connec-
tions. The water supply was in the same case,
as Mr. Stainton, going round the premises before
it grew quite dark, had discovered.
Of almost all small articles of furniture easily
broken by careless tenants, easily removed by
charwomen, the place was perfectly bare; and
as there were no portable candlesticks in which to
place the lights, the new tenant was forced to
make his illumination by the help of some dingy
mirrors provided with sconces, and to seek such
articles as he needed by the help of a guttering
mould candle stuck in the neck of a broken
bottle. After an inspection of the ground-floor
rooms he decided to take up his quarters for the
night in one which had evidently served as a
library.
In the centre of the apartment there was the
table covered with leather. Around the walls
were bookcases, still well filled with volumes,
too uninviting to borrow, too valueless in the
opinion of the ignorant to steal. In one corner,
stood a bureau, where the man, who for so many
years had been dead even while living, kept his
letters and papers.
The floor was bare. Once a Turkey carpet
had been spread over the centre of the polished
oak boards, but it lay in its wonted place no
longer; between the windows hung a convex


WALNUT-TREE HOUSE. 15
mirror, in which the face of any human being
looked horrible and distorted; whilst over the
mantle-shelf, indeed, forming a portion of it,
was a long, narrow glass, bordered by a frame
ornamented with a tracery of leaves and flowers.
The ceiling was richly decorated, and, spite of
the dust and dirt and neglect of years, all the
appointments of the apartment he had selected
gave Edgar Stainton the impression that it was
a good thing to be the owner of such a mansion,
even though it did chance to be situated as
much out of the way of fashionable London
as the diggings whence he had come.
“And there is not a creature but myself left
to enjoy it all,” he mused, as he sat looking into
the blazing coals. “My poor mother, how she
would have rejoiced to-night, had she lived to
be the mistress of so large a place | And my
father, what a harbour this would have seemed
after the storms that buffeted him | Well,
they are better off, I know; and yet I cannot
help thinking how strange it all is—that I, who
went away a mere beggar, should come home
rich, to be made richer, and yet stand so utterly
alone that in the length and breadth of England
I have not a relative to welcome me or to say I
wish you joy of your inheritance.”
He had eaten his frugal supper, and now,
pushing aside the table on which the remains of


16 JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE
his repast were spread, he began walking slowly
up and down the room, thinking over the past
and forming plans for the future.
Buried in reflection, the fire began to die
down without his noticing the fact; but a
sudden feeling of chilliness at length causing
him instinctively to look towards the hearth, he
threw wood into the grate, and, while the flames
went blazing up the wide chimney, piled on
coals as though he desired to set the house
alight.
While he was so engaged there came a knock
at the door of the room—a feeble, hesitating
knock, which was repeated more than once
before it attracted Mr. Stainton's attention.
When it did, being still busy with the fire,
and forgetting he was alone in the house, he
called out, “Come in.”
Along the panels there stole a rustling sort of
touch, as if someone were feeling uncertainly
for the handle—a curious noise, as of a weak
hand fumbling about the door in the dark;
then, in a similar manner, the person seeking
admittance tried to turn the lock.
“Come in, can't you?” repeated Mr. Stain-
ton; but even as he spoke he remembered he
was, or ought to be, the sole occupant of
the mansion.
He was not alarmed, he was too much accus-


J. A.I.NUT-TREE II.O.U.C.C. 17
tomed to solitude and danger for that; but he
rose from his stooping position and instinctively
seized his revolver, which he had chanced, while
unpacking some of his effects, to place on the
top of the bureau.
“Come in, whoever you are,” he cried; but
seeing the door remained closed, though the
intruder was evidently making futile efforts to
open it, he strode half-way across the room, and
then stopped, amazed.
For suddenly the door opened, and there
entered, shyly and timidly, a little child—a child
with the saddest face mortal ever beheld; a
child with wistful eyes and long ill-kept hair; a
child poorly dressed, wasted and worn, and
with the mournfullest expression on its coun-
tenance that face of a child ever wore.
“What a hungry little beggar,” thought Mr.
Stainton. “Well, young one, and what do you
want here?” he added, aloud.
The boy never answered, never took the
slightest notice of his questioner, but simply
walked slowly round , the room, peering into
all the corners, as if look ng for something.
Searching the embrasures o' the windows,
examining the recesses beside the fire-place,
pausing on the hearth to glance under the
library table, and finally, when the doorway
was reached once more, turning to Survey the
C


13 JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE
contents of the apartment with an eager and
yet hopeless scrutiny.
“What is it you want, my boy?” asked Mr.
Stainton, glancing as he spoke at the child's poor
thin legs, and short, shabby frock, and shoes
wellnigh worn out, and arms bare and lean and
unbeautiful. “Is it anything I can get for
you?”
Not a word—not a whisper; only for reply a
glance of the wistful brown eyes.
“Where do you come from, and who do you
belong to?” persisted Mr. Stainton.
The child turned slowly away.
“Come, you shall not get off so easily as you
seem to imagine,” persisted the new owner, ad-
vancing towards his visitor. “You have no
business to be here at all; and before you go
you must tell me how you chance to be in this
house, and what you expected to find in this
room.”
He was close to the doorway by this time, and
the child stood on the threshold, with its back
towards him.
Mr. Stainton could see every detail of the
boy's attire—his little plaid frock, which he had
outgrown, the hooks which fastened it; the
pinafore, soiled and crumpled, tied behind with
strings broken and knotted; in one place the
skirt had given from the body, and a piece of


WALNUT-TREE HOUSE. 19
thin, poor flannel showed that the child's under
habiliments matched in shabbiness his exterior
garments.
“Poor little chap,” thought Mr. Stainton.
“I wonder if he would like something to eat.
Are you hungry, my lad?”
The child turned and looked at him earnestly,
but answered never a word.
“I wonder if he is dumb,” marvelled Mr.
Stainton; and, seeing he was moving away, put
out a hand to detain him. But the child eluded
his touch, and flitted out into the hall and up
the wide staircase with swift, noiseless feet.
Only waiting to snatch a candle from one of
the sconces, Mr. Stainton pursued as fast as he
could follow.
Up the easy steps he ran at the top of his
speed; but, fast as he went, the child went
faster. Higher and higher he beheld the tiny
creature mounting, then, still keeping the same
distance between them, it turned when it
reached the top story and trotted along a nar-
row corridor with rooms opening off to right
and left. At the extreme end of this passage
a door stood ajar. Through this the child
passed, Mr. Stainton still following.
“I have run you to earth at last,” he said,
entering and closing the door. “Why, where
has the boy gone?” he added, holding the


2O JVALNUT-TIREE HOUSE.
candle above his head and gazing round the
dingy garret in which he found himself.
The room was quite empty. He examined it
closely, but could find no possible outlet save
the door, and a skylight which had evidently
not been opened for years.
There was no furniture in the apartment,
except a truckle bedstead, a rush-bottomed
chair, and a rickety washstand. No wardrobe,
or box, or press, where even a kitten might
have lain concealed.
“It is very strange,” muttered Mr. Stainton,
as he turned away baffled. “Wery strange l’’
he repeated, while he walked along the corridor.
“I don't understand it at all,” he decided, pro-
ceeding slowly down the topmost flight of
stairs; but then all at once he stopped.
“IT IS THE CHILD !” he exclaimed aloud, and
the sound of his own voice woke strange echoes
through the silence of that desolate house.
“IT IS THE CHILD !” and he descended the
principal staircase very slowly, with bowed
head, and his grave thoughtful face graver and
more thoughtful than ever.


my ALNUT-TREE HOUSE 21
CIHAPTER III.
SEEKING FOR INFORMATION.
IT was enough to make any man look grave;
and as time went on the new owner of
Walnut-Tree House found himself pondering
continually as to what the mystery could be
which attached to the child he had found in
possession of his property, and who had
already driven tenant after tenant out of the
premises. Inclined at first to regard the
clerk's story as a joke, and his own expe-
rience on the night of his arrival a delusion,
it was impossible for him to continue in-
credulous when he found, even in broad
daylight, that terrible child stealing down
the staircase and entering the rooms, looking—
looking, for something it never found.
Never after the first horror was overpast did
Mr. Stainton think of leaving the house in con-
sequence of that haunting presence which had
kept the house tenantless. It would have been
worse than useless, he felt. With the ocean
stretching between, his spirit would still be in
the old mansion at Lambeth—his mental vision


22 WALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
would always be watching the child engaged in
the weary search to which there seemed no end
—that never appeared to produce any result.
At bed and at board he had company, or the
expectation of it. No apartment in the build-
ing was secure from intrusion. It did not
matter where he lay; it did not matter where
he ate; between sleeping and waking, between
breakfast and dinner whenever the notion
seized it, the child came gliding in, looking,
looking, looking, and never finding; not linger-
ing longer than was necessary to be certain the
object of its search was absent, but wandering
hither and thither, from garret to kitchen, from
parlour to bed-chamber, in that quest which still
seemed fresh as when first begun.
Mr. Stainton went to his solicitors as the
most likely persons from whom to obtain in-
formation on the subject, and plunged at once
into the matter.
“Who is the child supposed to be, Mr.
Timpson?” he asked, making no secret that he
had seen it.
“Well, that is really very difficult to say,”
answered Mr. Timpson.
“There was a child once, I suppose?—a real
child—flesh and blood?”
Mr. Timpson took off his spectacles and
wiped them.


JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE. 23
“There were two; yes, certainly, in the time
of Mr. Felix Stainton—a boy and a girl.”
“In that house?”
“In that house. They survived him.”
“And what became of them?”
“The girl was adopted by a relation of her
father's, and the–boy—died.”
“Oh! the boy died, did he? Do you happen
to know what he died of ?” -
“No; I really do not. There was nothing
wrong about the affair, however, if that is what
you are thinking of There never was a hint of
that sort.”
Mr. Stainton sat silent for a minute; then he
said—
“Mr. Timpson, I can't shake off the idea that
somehow there has been foul play with regard
to those children. Who were they?”
“Felix Stainton's grandchildren. His daugh-
ter made a low marriage, and he cast her
adrift. After her death the two children were
received at Walnut-Tree House on sufferance—
fed and clothed, I believe, that was all; and
when the old man died the heir-at-law permitted
them to remain.”
“Alfred StaintOn?”
“Yes; the unhappy man who became insane.
Bis uncle died intestate, and he consequently
succeeded to everything but the personalty


24 JVALNUT-TREE HOUSE.
which was very small, and of which these child-
ren had a share.”
“There was never any suspicion, you say, of
foul play on the part of the late owner?”
“Dear, dear! No; quite the contrary.”
“Then you cannot throw the least light on
the mystery?”
“Not the least; I wish I could.”
For all that, Mr. Stainton carried away an
impression Mr. Timpson knew more of the
matter than he cared to tell; and was confirmed
in this opinion by a chance remark from Mr.
Timpson's partner, whom he met in the street
almost immediately after.
“Why can't you let the matter rest, Mr.
Stainton?” asked the Co. with some irritation of
manner when he heard the object of their
client's visit. “What is the use of troubling
your head about a child who has been lying in
Lambeth Churchyard these dozen years? Take
my advice, have the house pulled down and let
or sell the ground for building. You ought to
get a pot of money for it in that neighbourhood.
If there were a wrong done it is too late to set
it right now.” -
“What wrong do you refer to ?” asked Mr.
Stainton eagerly, thinking he had caught Timp-
son's partner napping. But that gentleman was
too sharp for him.
-------- ------- ---->


WALNUT-TREE HOUSE. 25
“I remarked if there were a wrong done—
not that there had been one,” he answered: and
then, without a pause, added, “We shall hope
to hear from you that you have decided to
follow our advice.”
But Mr. Stainton shook his head.
“I will not pull down the old house just yet,”
he said, and walked slowly away.
“There is a mystery behind it all,” he con-
sidered. “I must learn more about these
children. Perhaps some of the local trades-
people may recollect them.”
But the local tradespeople for the most part
were new comers—or else had not supplied “the
house.”
“So far as ever I could understand,” said one
“family butcher,” irascibly sharpening his knife
as he spoke, “there was not much to supply.
That custom was not worth speaking of I
hadn't it, so what I am saying is not said on my
own account. A scrag end of neck of mutton—
a bit of gravy beef- two pennyworth of sheep's
liver—that was the sort of thing. Misers, sir,
misers; the old gentleman bad, and the nephew
worse. A bad business, first and last. But
what else could be expected? When people as
can afford to live on the fat of the land never
have a sirloin inside their doors, why, worse
must come of it. No, sir, I never set eyes on
----------------


26 WALNUT. TREE HOUSE
the children to my knowledge; I only knew
there were children by hearing one of them was
dead, and that it was the poorest funeral ever
crossed a decent threshold.”
“Poor little chap,” thought Mr. Stainton,
looking straight out into the street for a moment;
then added, “lest the family misfortunes should
descend to me, you had better send round a
joint to Walnut-Tree House.”
“Law, sir, are you the gentleman as is living
there. I begyour pardon, I am sure, but I have
been so bothered with questions in regard of
that house and those children that I forget my
manners when I talk about them. A joint,
sir, what would you please to have P”
The new owner told him: and while count-
ing out the money to pay for it Mr. Parker re-
marked—
“There is only one person I can think of, sir,
likely to be able to give you any information
about the matter.”
“And that is ”—
“Mr. Hennings, at the Pedlar's Dog. He had
some acquaintance with the old lady as was
housekeeper both to Mr. Felix Stainton and the
gentleman that went out of his mind.”
Following this advice, the new owner repaired
to the Pedlar's Dog, where (having on his first
arrival at Walnut-Tree House ordered some


WALNUT. TRICI HOUSE 27
creature comforts from that well-known public)
he experienced a better reception than had
been accorded to him by Mr. Parker.
“Do I know Walnut-Tree House, sir?” said
Mr. Hennings, repeating his visitor's question.
“Well, yes, rather. Why, you might as well
ask me, do I know the Pedlar's Dog. As boy and
man I can rememember the old house for close
on five-and-fifty years. I remember Mr. George
Stainton; he used to wear a skull-cap and knee-
breeches. There was an orchard then where
Stainton Street is now, and his whole time was
taken up in keeping the boys out of it. Many
a time I have run from him.”
“Did you ever see anything of the boy and
girl who were there, after Mr. Alfred succeeded
to the property?—Felix Stainton's grand-
children, I mean,” asked the new owner, when a
pause in Mr. Hennings' reminiscences enabled
him to take his part in the conversation.
“Well, sir, I may have seen the girl, but, I
can't bring it to my recollection: the boy I do
remember, however. He came over here two or
three times with Mrs. Toplis, who kept house for
both Mr. Staintons, and I took notice of him,
both because he looked so peaky and old-
fashioned, and also on account of the talk about
him.”
“There was talk about him, then?”


28 JVALNUT-TREE HOUSE.
“Bless you, yes, sir; as much talk while he
was living as since he died. Everybody thought
he ought to have been the heir.”
“Why?” enquired the new owner.
“Because there was a will made leaving the
plaoe to him.’
Here was information. Mr. Stainton's heart
seemed to stand still for a second and then leap
on with excitement.
“Who made the Will ?”
“The grandfather, Felix Stainton, to be sure;
who else should make it?”
“I did not mean that. Was it not drawn out
by a solicitor?”
“Oh! yes—now I understand you, sir. The
will was drawn right enough by Mr. Quinance,
in the Lambeth Road, a very clever lawyer.”
“Not by Timpson, then? How was that?”
“The old man took the notion of making it
late one night, and so Mrs. Toplis sent to the
nearest lawyer she knew of.”
“Yes; and then "–
“Well, the will was made and signed and
witnessed, and everything regular; and from
that day to this no one knows what has become
Of it.”
“How very strange.”
“Yes, sir, it is more than strange—unaccount-
able. At first Mr. Quinance was suspected of


WALN UT-TREE HOUSE. 29
having given it up to Mr. Alfred; but Mrs.
Toplis and Quinance's clerk—he has succeeded
to the business now—say that old Felix insisted
upon keeping it himself. So, whether he des-
troyed it or the nephew got hold of it, Heaven
only knows; for no man living does, I think.”
“And the child—the boy I mean?”
“If you want to hear all about him, sir, Mrs.
Toplis is the one to tell you. If you have a
mind to give a shilling to a poor old lady who
always did try to keep herself respectable, and
who, I will say, paid her way honourable as
long as she had a sixpence to pay it honourable
with, you cannot do better than go and see Mrs
Toplis, who will talk to you for hours about the
time she lived at Walnut-Tree House.”
And with this delicate hint that his minutes
were more valuable then the hours of Mrs.
Toplis, Mr. Hennings would have closed the
interview, but that his visitor asked where
he should be able to find the housekeeper.
“A thousand pardons!” he answered, with
an air; “forgetting the very cream and
marrow of it, wasn't I? Mrs. Toplis, sir, is to
be found in Lambeth Workhouse—and a pity,
too.”
Edgar Stainton turned away, heart-sick.
Was this all wealth had done for his people
and those connected with them?


co J.W.ALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
No man seemed to care to waste a moment
in speaking about their affairs; no one had a
good word for, or kindly memory of them.
The poorest creature he met in the streets might
have been of more use in the world then they.
The house they had lived in mentioned as if a
curse rested on the place; themselves only re-
collected as leaving everything undone which it
befitted their station to do. An old servant
allowed to end her days in the workhouse!
“Heaven helping me,” he thought, “I will not
so misuse the wealth which has been given me.”
The slight put upon his family tortured and
made him wince, and the face of the dead boy
who ought to have been the heir seemed, as he
hurried along the streets, to pursue and look on
him with a wistful reproach.
“If I cannot lay that child I shall go mad,”
he said, almost audibly, “as mad, perhaps, as
Alfred Stainton.” And then a terrible fear took
possession of him. The horror of that which is
worse than any death, made for the moment
this brave, bold man, more timid than a woman.
“God preserve my senses,” he prayed, and
then determinedly putting that phantom behind
him, he went on to the Workhouse.


W.1L NUT-TIREE IIOUSE. 31
CHIAPTER [V.
DROTHER AND SISTER.
M". STAINTON had expected to find Mrs.
- Toplis a decrepid crone, bowed with age
and racked with rheumatism, and it was there-
fore like a gleam of sunshine streaming across
his path to behold a woman, elderly, certainly,
but carrying her years with ease, ruddy cheeked,
clear eyed, upright as a dart, who welcomed him
with respectful enthusiasm.
“And so you are Mr. Edgar, the son of the
dear old Captain,” she said, after the first greet-
ings and explanations were over, after she had
wiped her eyes and uttered many ejaculations of
astonishment and expressions of delight. “Eh!
I remember him coming to the house just after
he was married, and telling me about the sweet
lady his wife. I never heard a gentleman so
proud; he never seemed tired of saying the
words, “My wife.”
“She was a sweet lady,” answered the new
OWIler.
“And so the house has come to you, sir?
Well, I wish you joy. I hope you may have


32 IVALNUT-TREE HOUSE.
peace, and health, and happiness, and prosperity
in it. And I don't see why you should not—no,
indeed, sir.”
Edgar Stainton sat silent for a minute, think-
ing how he should best approach his subject.
“Mrs. Toplis,” he began at last, plunging into
the very middle of the difficulty, “I want you
to tell me about it. I have come here on
purpose to ask you what it all means.”
The old woman covered her face with her
hands, and he could see that she trembled
violently.
“You need not be afraid to speak openly to
me,” he went on. “I am quite satisfied there
was some great wrong done in the house, and I
want to put it right, if it lies in my power to do
so. I am a rich man. I was rich when the
news of this inheritance reached me, and I would
gladly give up the property to-morrow if I
could only undo whatever may have been done
amiss.”
Mrs. Toplis shook her head.
“Ah, sir; you can't do that,” she said.
“Money can't bring back the dead to life; and,
if it could, I doubt if even you could prove as
good a friend to the poor child sleeping in the
churchyard yonder as his Maker did when he
took him out of this troublesome world. It was
just soul rending to see the boy the last few


WALNUT.TIREE HOUSE. 33
months of his life. I can’t bear to think of it,
sir! Often at night I wake in a fright, fancying
I still hear the patter, patter of his poor little
feet upon the stair.”
“Do you know, it is a curious thing, but he
doesn't frighten me,” said Mr. Stainton; “that is
when I am in the house; although when I am
away from it the recollection seems to dog every
step I take.”
“What?” cried Mrs. Toplis; “have you then
seen him, too? There! what am I talking
about? I hope, sir, you will forgive my fool-
ishness.”
“I see him constantly,” was the calm reply.
“I wonder what it means !—I wonder what it
can mean?" exclaimed the housekeeper, wring-
ing her hands in dire perplexity and dismay.
“I do not know,” answered the new owner,
philosophically; “but I want you to help me
to find out. I suppose you remember the
children coming there at first?”
“Well, sir—well, they were poor Miss Mary's
son and daughter. She ran away, you know,
with a Mr. Fenton—made a very poor match;
but I believe he was kind to her. When they
were brought to us, a shivering little pair, my
master was for sending them here. Ay, and he
would have done it, too, if somebody had not
said he could be made to pay for their keep.
D
5


34 WALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
You never saw brother and sister so fond of one
another—never. They were twins. But, Lor' '
the boy was more like a father to the little gill
than aught else. He'd have kept an apple a
month, rather than eat it unless she had half;
and the same with everything. I think it was
seeing that—watching the love they had, he
for her and she for him, coming upon them
unsuspected, with their little arms round one
another's necks, made the old gentleman alter
his mind about leaving the place to Mr. Alfred;
for he said to me, one day, thoughtful like,
pointing to them, ‘Wonderful fond, Toplis!”
and I answered, ‘Yes, sir; for all the world like
the Babes in the Wood; not thinking of how
lonely that meant
“Shortly afterwards he took to his bed; and
while he was lying there, no doubt, better
thoughts came to him, for he used to talk about
his wife and Miss Mary, and the Captain, your
father, sir, and ask if the children were gone to
bed, and such like—things he never used to
mention before.
“So when he made the will Mr. Quinance
drew out I was not surprised—no, not a bit.
Though before that time he always spoke of
Mr. Alfred as his heir, and treated him as
such.”
... “That will never was found,” suggested Mr.


JWTALNUT. TREE HOUSE. 35
Stainton, anxious to get at another portion of
the narrative.
“Never, sir; we hunted for it high and low
Perhaps I wronged him, but I always thought
Mr. Alfred knew what became of it. After the
old gentleman's death the children were treated
shameful—shameful. I don’t mean beaten, or
that like; but half-starved and neglected. He
would not buy them proper clothes, and he
would not suffer them to wear decent things if
anybody else bought them. It was just the
same with their food. I durs'n't give them even
a bit of bread and butter unless it was on the
sly; and, indeed, there was not much to give in
that house. He turned regular miser. Hoard-
ing came into the family with Mrs. Lancelot
Stainton, Mr. Alfred's great grandmother, and
they went on from bad to worse, each one closer
and nearer than the last, begging your pardon
for saying so, sir; but it is the truth.”
“I fear so, Mrs. Toplis,” agreed the man, who
certainly was neither close nor near.
“Well, sir, at last, when the little girl was
about six years old, she fell sick, and we didn't
think she would get over the illness. While she
was about at her worst, Mrs. May, her father's
sister, chanced to be stopping up in London,
and, as Mr. Alfred refused to let a doctor inside
his doors, she made no more ado but wrapped
*


36 JVALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
--
the child up in blankets, sent for a cab, and
carried her off to her own lodgings. Mr.
Alfred made no objection to that. All he said
as she went through the hall was,
“‘If you take her now, remember, you must
keep her.’
“‘Very well, she replied, ‘I will keep her.’”
“And the boy? the boy?” cried Mr. Stainton,
in an agony of impatience.
“I am coming to him, sir, if you please. He
just dwindled away after his sister and he were
parted, and died in December, as she was taken
away in the July.”
“What did he die of ?”
“A broken heart, sir. It seems a queer
thing to say about a child; but if ever a heart
was broken his was. At first he was always
wandering about the house looking for her, but
towards the end he used to go up to his room
and stay there all by himself. At last I wrote
to Mrs. May, but she was ill when the letter got
to her, and when she did come up he was dead.
My word, she talked to Mr. Alfred ! I never
heard any one person say so much to another.
She declared he had first cheated the boy of his
inheritance, and then starved him to death;
but that was not true, the child broke his heart
fretting after his sister.”
“Yes; and when he was dead—”


WALNUT. TREE HOUSE. 37
“Sir, I don't like to speak of it, but as true
as I am sitting here, the night he was put in
his coffin he came pattering down just as usual,
looking, looking for his sister. I went straight
upstairs, and, if I had not seen the little wasted
body lying there still and quiet, I must have
thought he had come back to life. We were
never without him afterwards, never; that,
and nothing else, drove Mr. Alfred mad. He
used to think he was fighting the child and kill-
ing it. When the worst fits were on him he
tried to trample it under foot or crush it up in a
corner, and then he would sob and cry, and
pray for it to be taken away. I have heard he
recovered a little before he died, and said his
uncle told him there was a will leaving all to
the boy, but he never saw such a paper. Per-
haps it was all talk, though, or that he was still
raving.”
“You are quite positive there was no foul
play as regards the child?” asked Mr. Stainton,
sticking to that question pertinaciously.
“Certain, Sir; I don't say but Mr. Alfred
wished him dead. That is not murder, though.”
“I am not clear about that,” answered Mr.
Stainton.


38 J, ALNUT-TREE HOUSE.
CHAPTER W.
TIIE NEXT AFTERNOON.
M". STAINTON was trying to work off some
portion of his perplexities by pruning
the grimy evergreens in front of Walnut-Tree
House, and chopping away at the under-
growth of weeds and couch grass which had
in the course of years matted together beneath
the shrubs, when his attention was attracted to
two ladies who stood outside the great iron gate
looking up at the house.
“It seems to be occupied now,” remarked the
elder, turning to her companion. “I suppose
the new owner is going to live here. It looks
just as dingy as ever; but you do not remember
it, Mary.”
“I think I do,” was the answer. “As I look
the place grows familiar to me. I do recollect
some of the rooms, I am sure, just like a dream,
as I remember Georgie. What I would give to
have a peep inside.”
At this juncture the new owner emerged from
amongst the bushes, and, opening the gate,


YJ’ALNUT. TREE HOUSE. 39
asked if the ladies would like to look over
the place.
The elder hesitated; whilst the younger
whispered, “Oh, aunt, pray do!”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. May to the stranger,
whom she believed to be a gardener; “but
perhaps Mr. Stainton might object.”
“No ; he wouldn't, I know,” declared the
new owner. “You can go through the house
if you wish. There is no one in it. Nobody
lives there except myself.”
“Taking charge, I suppose?” suggested Mrs.
May, blandly.
“Something of that sort,” he answered.
“I do not think he is a caretaker,” said the
girl, as she and her relative passed into the old
house together.
“What do you suppose he is, then?” asked
her aunt.
“Mr. Stainton himself.”
“Nonsense, child!” exclaimed Mrs. May,
turning, nevertheless, to one of the windows,
and casting a curious glance towards the new
owner, who was now, his hands thrust deep in
his pockets, walking idly up and down the drive.
After they had been all over the place, from
hall to garret, with a peep into this room and a
glance into that, Mrs. May found the man who
puzzled her leaning against one of the pillars


40 WALNUT-TREE HOUSE.
of the porch, waiting, apparently, for their re-
appearance.
“I am sure we are very much obliged to
you,” she began, with a certain hesitation in
her manner.
“Pray do not mention it,” he said.
“This young lady has sad associations con-
nected with the house,” Mrs. May proceeded,
still doubtfully feeling her way.
He turned his eyes towards the girl for a
moment, and, though her veil was down, saw
she had been weeping.
“I surmised as much,” he replied. “She is
Miss Fenton, is she not?” -
“Yes, certainly,” was the answer; “and you
are—--”
“Edgar Stainton,” said the new owner, hold-
ing out his hand.
“I am all alone here,” he went on, after
the first explanations were over. “But I can
manage to give you a cup of tea. Pray do
come in, and let me feel I am not entirely
alone in England.”
Only too well pleased, Mrs. May complied,
and ten minutes later the three were sitting
round a fire, the blaze of which leapt and flick-
ered upon the walls and over the ceiling, cast
ing bright lights on the dingy mirrors and the
dark oak shelves.
--~~~


WALNUT-TREE HOUSE 4r
t
“It is all coming back to me now,” said the
girl softly, addressing her aunt. “Many an
hour George and I have sat on that hearth
seeing pictures in the fire.”
But she did not see something which was
even then standing close beside her, and which
the new owner had witnessed approach with a
feeling of terror that precluded speech.
It was the child ! The child searching about
no longer for something it failed to find, but
standing at the girl's side still and motionless,
with its eyes fixed upon her face, and its poor,
wasted figure nestling amongst the folds of her
dress.
“Thank Heaven she does not see it !” he
thought, and drew his breath, relieved.
No; she did not see it—though its wan cheek
touched her shoulder, though its thin hand
rested on her arm, though through the long
conversation which followed it never moved
from her side, nor turned its wistful eyes from
her face.
When she went away—when she took her
fresh young beauty out of the house it seemed
to gladden and light up—the child followed her
to the threshold; and then in an instant it van-
ished, and Mr. Stainton watched for its flitting
up the staircase all in vain.
But later on in the evening, when he was sit-


42 WALNUT. TREE IIOUSE
ting alone beside the fire, with his eyes bent on
the glowing coals, and perhaps seeing pictures
there, as Mary said she and her brother had
done in their lonely childhood, he felt conscious,
even without looking round, that the boy was
there once again.
And when he fell to thinking of the long,
long years during which the dead child had
kept faithful and weary watch for his sister,
searching through the empty rooms for one
who never came, and then bethought him of the
sister to whom her dead brother had become
but the vaguest of memories, of the summers
and winters during the course of which she had
probably forgotten him altogether, he sighed
deeply; and heard his sigh echoed behind him
in the merest faintest whisper.
More, when he, thinking deeply about his
newly found relative and trying to recall each
feature in her face, each tone of her voice,
found it impossible to dissociate the girl grown
to womanhood from the child he had pictured
to himself as wandering about the old house
in company with her twin-brother, their arms
twined together, their thoughts one, their sor-
rows one, their poor pleasures one—he felt a
touch on his hand, and knew the boy was be-
side him, looking with wistful eyes into the
firelight, too.


WALNUT-TREE HOUSE 43
But when he turned he saw that sadness
clouded those eyes no longer. She was found;
the lost had come again to meet a living friend
on the once desolate hearth, and up and down
the wide desolate staircase those weary little
feet pattered no longer.
The quest was over, the search ended; into
the darksome corners of that dreary house the
child's glance peered no longer.
She was come! Through years he had kept
faithful watch for her, but the waiting was
ended now.
That night Edgar Stainton slept soundly; and
yet when morning dawned he knew that once in
the darkness he wakened suddenly and was con-
scious of a small, childish hand smoothing his
pillow and touching his brow.
Sweet were the dreams which visited his rest
subsequently; sweet as ought to be the dreams
of a man who had said to his own soul—and
meant to hold fast by words he had spoken—
“As I deal by that orphan girl, so may God
deal with me!” -


44 WALNUT. TREE HOUSE.
CHAPTER WI.
T H E MIS SING WILL.
RE long there were changes in the old
house. Once again Mrs. Toplis reigned
there, but this time with servants under her—
with maids she could scold and lads she could
harass. -
The larder was well plenished, the cellars
sufficiently stocked; windows formerly closely
shuttered now stood open to admit the air; and
on the drive grass grew no longer—too many
footsteps passed that way for weeds to flourish.
It was Christmas-time. The joints in the
butchers' shops were gay with ribbons; the
grocers' windows were tricked out to delight the
eyes of the children, young and old, who passed
along. In Mr. May's house up the Clapham
Road all was excitement, for the whole of the
family—father, mother, grown-up sons and
daughters—girls still in short frocks and boys
in round jackets—were going to spend Christ-
mas Eve with their newly-found cousin, whom
they had adopted as a relation with an un-
animity as rare as charming.


WALNUT. TREE HOUSE. 45
Cousin Mary also was going—Cousin Mary
had got a new dress for the occasion, and was
having her hair done up in a specially effective
manner by Cissie May, when the toilette pro-
ceedings were interrupted by half a dozen young
voices announcing—
“A gentleman in the parlour wants to see
you, Mary. Pa says you are to make haste and
come down immediately.”
Obediently Mary made haste as bidden and
descended to the parlour, to find there the clerk
from Timpsons', who met Mr. Stainton on his
arrival in London.
His business was simple, but important. Once
again he was the bearer of a letter from Timp-
son and Co., this time announcing to Miss Fenton
that the will of Mr Felix Stainton had been
found, and that under it she was entitled to the
interest of ten thousand pounds, secured upon
the houses in Stainton Street.
“Oh aunt, oh! uncle, how rich we shall be,”
cried the girl, running off to tell her cousins;
but the uncle and aunt looked grave. They
were wondering how this will might effect
Edgar Stainton.
While they were still talking it over—after
Timpsons' young man had taken his departure,
Mr. Edgar Stainton himself arrived.
“Oh, it's all right!” he said, in answer to


46 WALNUT-TREE HOUSE.
their questions. “I found the will in the room
where Felix Stainton died. Walnut-Tree House
and all the freeholds were left to the poor little
chap who died, chargeable with Mary's ten
thousand pounds, five hundred to Mrs. Toplis,
and a few other legacies. Failing George, the
property was to come to me. I have been to
Quinance's successor, and found out the old man
and Alfred had a grievous quarrel, and that in
consequence he determined to cut him out
altogether. Where is Mary? I want to wish
her joy.”
Mary was in the little conservatory, searching
for a rose to put in her pretty brown hair.
He went straight up to her, and said,
“Mary, dear, you have had one Christmas gift
to-night, and I want you to take another with
it.”
“What is it, Cousin Edgar?” she asked; but
when she looked in his face she must have
guessed his meaning, for she drooped her head,
and began pulling her sweet rose to pieces.
He took the flower, and with it her fingers.
“Will you have me, dear?” he asked. “I
am but a rough fellow, I know; but I am true,
and I love you dearly.”
Somehow, she answered him as he wished, and
all spent a very happy evening in the old house.
Once, when he was standing close beside her


WALNUT. TREE HOUSE. 47
in the familiar room, hand clasped in hand,
Edgar Stainton saw the child looking at them.
There was no sorrow or yearning in his eyes
as he gazed—only a great peace, a calm which
seemed to fill and light them with an ex-
quisite beauty.


THE OPEN DOOR.
-i->''<-i-e-
So: people do not believe in ghosts. For
that matter some people do not believe in
anything. There are persons who even affect
incredulity concerning that open door at Ladlow
Hall. They say it did not stand wide open-
that they could have shut it; that the whole
affair was a delusion; that they are sure it
must have been a conspiracy; that they are
doubtful whether there is such a place as Lad-
low on the face of the earth; that the first time
they are in Meadowshire they will look it up.
That is the manner in which this story,
hitherto unpublished, has been greeted by my
acquaintances. How it will be received by
strangers is quite another matter. I am going
to tell what happened to me exactly as it hap-
pened, and readers can credit or scoff at the tale
as it pleases them. It is not necessary for me
to find faith and comprehension in addition to a


THE OPEN DOOR. 49
ghost story, for the world at large. If such
were the case, I should lay down my pen.
Perhaps, before going further, I ought to
premise there was a time when I did not believe
in ghosts either. If you had asked me one
summer's morning years ago when you met me
on London Bridge, if I held such appearances
to be probable or possible, you would have
received an emphatic “No” for answer.
But, at this rate, the story of the Open Door
will never be told; so we will, with your per-
mission, plunge into it immediately.
“Sandy!”
“What do you want?”
“Should you like to earn a sovereign?”
“Of course I should.”
A somewhat curt dialogue, but we were given
to curtness in the office of Messrs. Frimpton,
Frampton, and Fryer, auctioneers and estate
agents, St. Benet's Hill, City.
(My name is not Sandy or anything like it,
but the other clerks so styled me because of a
real or fancied likeness to some character, an
ill-looking Scotchman, they had seen at the
theatre. From this it may be inferred I was not
handsome. Far from it. The only ugly speci-
men in my family, I knew I was very plain; and
it chanced to be no secret to me either that I
felt grievously discontented with my lot.
E.


50 TVIE OPEN DOOR.
I did not like the occupation of clerk in an
auctioneer's office, and I did not like my em-
ployers.
We are all of us inconsistent, I suppose, for it
was a shock to me to find they entertained a
most cordial antipathy to me.)
“Because,” went on Parton, a fellow, my
senior by many years—a fellow who delighted
in chaffing me, “I can tell you how to lay
hands on one.”
“How?” I asked, sulkily enough, for I felt
he was having what he called his fun.
“You know that place we let to Carrison, the
tea-dealer?”
Carrison was a merchant in the China trade,
possessed of fleets of vessels and towns of ware-
houses; but I did not correct Parton's expression,
I simply nodded. - -
“He took it on a long lease, and he can't live
in it; and our governor said this morning he
wouldn't mind giving anybody who could find
out what the deuce is the matter, a couple of
sovereigns and his travelling expenses.”
“Where is the place?” I asked, without turn-
ing my head; for the convenience of listening I
had put my elbows on the desk and
propped up my face with both hands.
“Away down in Meadowshire, in the heart of
the grazing country.”


WIE OPEN DOOR. 51
“And what is the matter?” I further
inquired.
“A door that won't keep shut.”
“What?”
“A door that will keep open, if you prefer
that way of putting it,” said Parton.
“You are jesting.”.
“If I am, Carrison is not, or Fryer either.
Carrison came here in a nice passion, and Fryer
was in a fine rage; I could see he was, though
he kept his temper outwardly. They have had
an active correspondence it appears, and Carri-
son went away to talk to his lawyer. Won't
make much by that move, I fancy.”
“But tell me,” I intreated, “why the door
won't keep shut?” -
“They say the place is haunted.”
“What nonsense !” I exclaimed.
“Then you are just the person to take the
ghost in hand. I thought so while old Fryer
was speaking.”
“If the door won't keep shut,” I remarked,
pursuing my own train of thought, “why can't
they let it stay open?”
“I have not the slightest idea. I only
know there are two sovereigns to be made,
and that I give you a present of the informa-
tion.”
And having thus spoken, Parton took down


52 THE OPEN OOOR.
his hat and went out, either upon his own
business or that of his employers.
There was one thing I can truly say about
our office, we were never serious in it. I fancy
that is the case in most offices nowadays; at all
events it was the case in ours. We were always
chaffing each other, playing practical jokes, tell-
ing stupid stories, scamping our work, looking
at the clock, counting the weeks to next St.
Lubbock's Day, counting the hours to Saturday.
For all that we were all very earnest in our
desire to have our salaries raised, and unani-
mous in the opinion no fellows ever before
received such wretched pay. I had twenty
pounds a year, which I was aware did not half
provide for what I eat at home. My mother
and sisters left me in no doubt on the point, and
when new clothes were wanted I always hated
to mention the fact to my poor worried father.
We had been better off once, I believe,
though I never remember the time. My father
owned a small property in the country, but
owing to the failure of some bank, I never
could understand what bank, it had to be
mortgaged; then the interest was not paid, and
the mortgagees foreclosed, and we had nothing
left save, the half-pay of a major, and about a
hundred a year which my mother brought to
the common fund.


THE OPEN DOOR. 53
We might have managed on our income, Ithink,
if we had not been so painfully genteel; but
we were always trying to do something quite
beyond our means, and consequently debts ac-
cumulated, and creditors ruled us with rods of
iron.
Before the final smash came, one of my sisters
married the younger son of a distinguished
family, and even if they had been disposed to
live comfortably and sensibly she would have
kept her sisters up to the mark. My only
brother, too, was an officer, and of course the
family thought it necessary he should see we
preserved appearances.
It was all a great trial to my father, I think,
who had to bear the brunt of the dunning and
harass, and eternal shortness of money; and
it would have driven me crazy if I had not
found a happy refuge when matters were going
wrong at home at my aunt's. She was my
father's sister, and had married so “dreadfully
below her” that my mother refused to acknow-
ledge the relationship at all.
For these reasons and others, Parton's careless
words about the two sovereigns stayed in my
memory. -
I wanted money badly—I may say I never
had sixpence in the world of my own—and
I thought if I could earn two sovereigns I


5 * THE OIPEN DOOR.
----------- -
might buy some trifles I needed for myself,
and present my father with a new umbrella.
Fancy is a dangerous little jade to flirt with,
as I soon discovered.
She led me on and on. First I thought of
the two sovereigns; then I recalled the amount
of the rent Mr. Carrison agreed to pay for
Ladlow IIall; then I decided he would gladly
give more than two sovereigns if he could
only have the ghost turned out of possession.
I fancied I might get ten pounds—twenty
pounds. I considered the matter all day, and
I dreamed of it all night, and when I dressed
myself next morning I was determined to speak
to Mr. Fryer on the subject. -
I did so—I told that gentleman Parton had
mentioned the matter to me, and that if Mr.
Fryer had no objection, I should like to try
whether I could not solve the mystery. . I
told him I had been accustomed to lonely
houses, and that I should not feel at all ner-
vous; that I did not believe in ghosts, and
as for burglars, I was not afraid of them.
“I don't mind your trying,” he said at last.
“Of course you understand it is no cure, no
pay. Stay in the house for a week; if at
the end of that time you can keep the
door shut, locked, bolted, or nailed up, tele-
graph for me, and I will go down—if not,
- - - - - - - - - - -


THE OPEN DOOR. 55
come back. If you like to take a companion,
there is no objection.”
I thanked him, but said I would rather not
have a companion.
“There is only one thing, sir, I should like,”
I ventured.
“And that—?” he interrupted.
“Is a little more money. If I lay the ghost,
or find out the ghost, I think I ought to have
more than two sovereigns.”
“How much more do you think you ought
to have P” he asked.
His tone quite threw me off my guard, it
was so civil and conciliatory, and I an-
swered boldly:
“Well, if Mr. Carrison cannot now live in.
the place perhaps he wouldn't mind giving
me a ten-pound note.”
Mr. Fryer turned, and opened one of the
books lying on his desk. He did not look
at, or refer to it in any way—I saw that.
“You have been with us how long, Edlyd P”
he said.
“Eleven months to-morrow,” I replied.
“And our arrangement was, I think, quar-
terly payments, and one month's notice on
either side P”
“Yes, sir.” I heard my voice tremble, though
I could not have said what frightened me.


56 THE OPEN DOOR.
“Then you will please to take your notice
now. Come in before you leave this evening,
and I'll pay you three months' salary, and then we
shall be quits.” -
“I don't think I quite understand,” I was
beginning, when he broke in:
“But I understand, and that's enough. I
have had enough of you and your airs, and
your indifference, and your insolence here. I
never had a clerk I disliked as I do you. Com-
ing and dictating terms, forsooth ! No, you
shan’t go to Ladlow. Many a poor chap”—
Che said, “devil”)—“would have been glad to
earn half a guinea, let alone two sovereigns;
and perhaps you may be before you are
much older.” -
“Do you mean that you won't keep me
here any longer, sir?” I asked in despair.
“I had no intention of offending you. I 22
“Now you need not say another word,” he
interrupted, “for I won't bandy words with you.
Since you have been in this place you have
never known your position, and you don't seem
able to realise your position. When I was
foolish enough to take you, I did it on the
strength of your connexions, but your connex-
ions have done nothing for me. I have never
had a penny out of any one of your friends—if
you have any. You'll not do any good in


TRIE OPEN DOOR. 57
business for yourself or anybody else, and the
sooner you go to Australia—or”—(here he was
very emphatic)—“and get off these premises, the
better I shall be pleased.”
I did not answer him—I could not. He had
worked himself to a white heat by this time,
and evidently intended I should leave his pre-
mises then and there. He counted five pounds
out of his cash-box, and, writing a receipt,
pushed it and the money across the table, and
bade me sign and be off at once.
My hand trembled so I could scarcely hold
the pen, but I had presence of mind enough left
to return one pound ten in gold, and three
shillings and fourpence I had, quite by the
merest good fortune, in my waistcoat pocket.
“I can't take wages for work I haven't done,”
I said, as well as sorrow and passion would let
me. “Good-morning,” and I left his office and
passed out among the clerks.
I took from my desk the few articles belong-
ing to me, left the papers it contained in order,
and then, locking it, asked Parton if he would
be so good as to give the key to Mr. Fryer.
“What's up?” he asked. “Are you going?”
I said, “Yes, I am going.”
“Got the sack?”
“That is exactly what has happened.”
“Well, I'm —!” exclaimed Mr. Parton.


58 THE OPEN DOOIR.
---
- - - **-*--- ~~~----
I did not stop to hear any further commen-
tary on the matter, but bidding my fellow-clerks
good-bye, shook the dust of Frimpton's Estate
and Agency Office from off my feet.
I did not like to go home and say I was
discharged, so I walked about aimlessly, and at
length found myself in Regent Street. There I
met my father, looking more worried than
usual.
“Do you think, Phil,” he said (my name is
Theophilus), “you could get two or three
pounds from your employers.”
Maintaining a discreet silence regarding what
had passed, I answered:
“No doubt I could.”
“I shall be glad if you will then, my boy,”
he went on, “for we are badly in want of it.”
I did not ask him what was the special
trouble. Where would have been the use?
There was always something—gas, or water, or
poor-rates, or the butcher, or the baker, or the
bootmaker. Well, it did not much matter, for
we were well accustomed to the life; but, I
thought, “if ever I marry, we will keep within
our means.” And then there rose up before me
a vision of Patty, my cousin—the blithest,
prettiest, most useful, most sensible girl that
ever made sunshine in a poor man's house.
My father and I had parted by this time, and


THE OPEN DOOR. 59
I was still walking aimlessly on, when all at
once an idea occurred to me. Mr. Fryer had
not treated me well or fairly. I would hoist
him on his own petard. I would go to head-
quarters, and try to make terms with Mr.
Carrison direct.
No sooner thought than done. I hailed a
passing omnibus, and was ere long in the heart
of the city. Like other great men, Mr. Carrison
was difficult of access—indeed, so difficult of
access, that the clerk to whom I applied for an
audience told me plainly I could not see him at
all. I might send in my message if I liked, he
was good enough to add, and no doubt it would
be attended to. I said I should not send in a
message, and was then asked what I would do.
My answer was simple. I meant to wait till I
did see him. I was told they could not have
people waiting about the office in this way.
I said I supposed I might stay in the street.
“Carrison didn't own that,” I suggested.
The clerk advised me not to try that game,
or I might get locked up.
I said I would take my chance of it.
After that we went on arguing the question
at some length, and we were in the middle of a
heated argument, in which several of Carrison's
“young gentlemen,” as they called themselves,
were good enough to join, when we were all


6o THE OPEN DOOR.
suddenly silenced by a grave-looking individual,
who authoritatively inquired:
“What is all this noise about P”
Before anyone could answer I spoke up:
“I want to see Mr. Carrison, and they won't
let me.”
“What do you want with Mr. Carrison?”
“I will tell that to himself only.”
“Very well, say on—I am Mr. Carrison.”
For a moment I felt abashed and almost
ashamed of my persistency; next instant,
however, what Mr. Fryer would have called
my “native audacity” came to the rescue,
and I said, drawing a step or two nearer to
him, and taking off my hat:
“I wanted to speak to you about Ladlow
Hall, if you please, sir.”
In an instant the fashion of his face changed,
a look of irritation succeeded to that of im-
mobility; an angry contraction of the eyebrows
disfigured the expression of his countenance.
“Ladlow Hall!” he repeated; “and what
have you got to say about Ladlow Hall?”
“That is what I wanted to tell you, sir,”
I answered, and a dead hush seemed to fall on
the office as I spoke.
The silence seemed to attract his attention,
for he looked sternly at the clerks, who were
not using a pen or moving a finger.


THE OPE V DOOR. 61
“Come this way, then,” he said; abruptly;
and next minute I was in his private office.
“Now, what is it?” he asked, flinging him-
self into a chair, and addressing me, who stood
hat in hand beside the great table in the
middle of the room.
I began—I will say he was a patient listener
—at the very beginning, and told my story
straight through. I concealed nothing. I en-
larged on nothing. A discharged clerk I stood
before him, and in the capacity of a discharged
clerk I said what I had to say. He heard me to
the end, then he sat silent, thinking.
At last he spoke.
“You have heard a great deal of conversation
about Ladlow, I suppose?” he remarked.
“No, sir; I have heard nothing except what
I have told you.” -
“And why do you desire to strive to solve
such a mystery?”
“If there is any money to be made, I should
like to make it, sir.”
“How old are you?”
“Two-and-twenty last January.”
“And how much salary had you at
Frimpton's?”
“Twenty pounds a year.”
“Humph ! More than you are worth, I
should say.”


O2 TIIE OPEN DOOR.
“Mr. Fryer seemed to imagine so, sir, at any
rate,” I agreed, sorrowfully.
“But what do you think?” he asked.
smiling in spite of himself.
“I think I did quite as much work as the
other clerks,” I answered.
“That is not saying much, perhaps,” he
observed. I was of his opinion, but I held my
peace.
“You will never make much of a clerk, I am
afraid,” Mr. Carrison proceeded, fitting his
disparaging remarks upon me as he might
on a lay figure. “You don't like desk-work?”
“Not much, sir.”
“I should judge the best thing you could do
would be to emigrate,” he went on, eyeing me
critically.
“Mr. Fryer said I had better go to Australia
Or ” I stopped, remembering the alternative
that gentleman had presented.
“Or where?” asked Mr. Carrison.
“The , sir,” I explained, softly and apolo-
getically. - -
He laughed—he lay back in his chair and
laughed—and I laughed myself, though rue-
fully.
After all, twenty pounds was twenty pounds,
though I had not thought much of the salary
till I lost it. -


TIME OPEN DOOR. 63
We went on talking for a long time after
that; he asked me all about my father and my
early life, and how we lived, and where we
lived, and the people we knew ; and, in fact,
put more questions than I can well remember.
“It seems a crazy thing to do,” he said at
last; “and yet I feel disposed to trust you.
The house is standing perfectly empty. I can't
live in it, and I can't get rid of it; all my own
furniture I have removed, and there is nothing
in the place except a few old-fashioned articles
belonging to Lord Ladlow. The place is a loss
to me. It is of no use trying to let it, and
thus, in fact, matters are at a dead lock. You
won't be able to find out anything, I know, be-
cause, of course, others have tried to solve the
mystery ere now; still, if you like to try you
may. I will make this bargain with you. If
you like to go down, I will pay your reasonable
expenses for a fortnight; and if you do any
good for me, I will give you a ten-pound note
for yourself. Of course I must be satisfied that
what you have told me is true and that you are
what you represent. Do you know anybody in
the city who would speak for you?”
I could think of no one but my uncle. I
hinted to Mr. Carrison he was not grand enough
or rich enough, perhaps, but I knew nobody
else to whom I could refer him.


64 THE OPEN DOOR.
“What!” he said, “Robert Dorland, of Cul-
lum Street. He does business with us. If he
will go bail for your good behaviour I shan’t
want any further guarantee. Come along.”
And to my intense amazement, he rose, put on
his hat, walked me across the outer office and
along the pavements till we came to Cullum
Street.
“Do you know this youth, Mr. Dorland?” he
said, standing in front of my uncle's desk, and
laying a hand on my shoulder.
“Of course I do, Mr. Carrison,” answered my
uncle, a little apprehensively; for, as he told me
afterwards, he could not imagine what mischief
I had been up to. “He is my nephew.”
“And what is your opinion of him—do you
think he is a young fellow I may safely trust?”
My uncle smiled, and answered. “That de-
pends on what you wish to trust him with.”
“A long column of addition, for instance.”
“It would be safer to give that task to some-
one else.” -
“Oh, uncle!” I remonstrated; for I had
really striven to conquer my natural antipathy
to figures—worked hard, and every bit of it
against the collar.
My uncle got off his stool, and said, standing
with his back to the empty fire-grate:
“Tell me what you wish the boy to do, Mr.


THE OPEN DOOR. 65
Carrison, and I will tell you whether he will
suit your purpose or not. I know him, I be-
lieve, better than he knows himself.”
In an easy, affable way, for so rich a man,
Mr. Carrison took possession of the vacant stool,
and nursing his right leg over his left knee,
answered:
“He wants to go and shut the open door at
Ladlow for me. Do you think he can do
that?” -
My uncle looked steadily back at the speaker,
and said, “I thought, Mr. Carrison, it was quite
settled no one could shut it?”
Mr. Carrison shifted a little uneasily on his
seat, and replied: “I did not set your nephew
the task he fancies he would like to undertake.”
“Have nothing to do with it, Phil,” advised
my uncle, shortly.
“You don’t believe in ghosts, do you, Mr. Dor-
land?” asked Mr. Carrison, with a slight sneer.
“Don’t you, Mr. Carrison?” retorted my
uncle.
There was a pause—an uncomfortable pause
—during the course of which I felt the ten
pounds, which, in imagination, I had really
spent, trembling in the scale. I was not afraid.
For ten pounds, or half the money, I would
have faced all the inhabitants of spirit land. I
longed to tell them so; but something in the way
F


66 THE OPEN DOOR.
those two men looked at each other stayed my
tongue.
“If you ask me the question here in the
heart of the city, Mr. Dorland,” said Mr. Carri-
son, at length, slowly and carefully, “I answer
‘No,' but if you were to put it to me on a dark
night at Ladlow, I should beg time to consider.
I do not believe in supernatural phenomena my-
self, and yet—the door at Ladlow is as much
beyond my comprehension as the ebbing and
flowing of the sea.” -
“And you can't live at Ladlow?” remarked
my uncle.
“I can’t live at Ladlow, and what is more, I
can’t get anyone else to live at Ladlow.”
“And you want to get rid of your lease?”
“I want so much to get rid of my lease, that
I told Fryer I would give him a handsome sum
if he could induce anyone to solve the mystery.
Is there any other information you desire, Mr.
Dorland? because if there is, you have only to
ask and have. I feel I am not here in a prosaic
office in the city of London, but in the Palace
Of Truth.” - -
My uncle took no notice of the implied
compliment. When wine is good it needs no
bush. If a man is habitually honest in his
speech and in his thoughts, he desires no
recognition of the fact.


THE OPEN DOOR. 67
“I don’t think so,” he answered; “it is for
the boy to say what he will do. If he be
advised by me he will stick to his ordinary
work in his employers' office, and leave ghost-
hunting and spirit-laying alone.”
Mr. Carrison shot a rapid glance in my
direction, a glance which, implying a secret
understanding, might have influenced my reply
could I have stooped to deceive my uncle.
“I can't stick to my work there any longer,”
I said. “I got my marching orders to-day.”
“What had you been doing, Phil?” asked
my uncle.
“I wanted ten pounds to go and lay the
ghost!” I answered, so dejectedly, that both
Mr. Carrison and my uncle broke out laugh-
ing.
“Ten pounds!” cried my uncle, almost
between laughing and crying, “why, Phil, boy,
I had rather, poor man though I am, have
given thee ten pounds than that thou should'st
go ghost-hunting or ghost-laying.”
When he was very much in earnest my uncle
went back to thee and thou of his native
dialect. I liked the vulgarism, as my mother
called it, and I knew my aunt loved to hear him
use the caressing words to her. He had risen,
not quite from the ranks it is true, but if ever a
gentleman came ready born into the world it


68 THE OPEN DOOR,
was Robert Dorland, upon whom at our home
everyone seemed to look down.
“What will you do, Edlyd?” asked Mr.
Carrison; “you hear what your uncle says,
“Give up the enterprise, and what I say; I
do not want either to bribe or force your
inclinations.”
“I will go, sir,” I answered quite steadily.
“I am not afraid, and I should like to show
you—"I stopped. I had been going to say, “I
should like to show you I am not such a fool as
you all take me for,” but I felt such an address
would be too familiar, and refrained.
Mr. Carrison looked at me curiously. I think
he supplied the end of the sentence for himself,
but he only answered:
“I should like you to show me that door fast
shut; at any rate, if you can stay in the place
alone for a fortnight, you shall have your money.”
“I don't like it, Phil,” said my uncle: “I
don’t like this freak at all.”
“I am sorry for that, uncle,” I answered,
“for I mean to go.”
“When P” asked Mr. Carrison.
“To-morrow morning,” I replied.
“Give him five pounds, Dorland, please, and
I will send you my cheque. You will account
to me for that sum, you understand,” added Mr
Carrison, turning to where I stood.


THE OPEN DOOR. 69
“A sovereign will be quite enough,” I said.
“You will take five pounds, and account to
me for it,” repeated Mr. Carrison, firmly; “also,
you will write to me every day, to my private
address, and if at any moment you feel the
thing too much for you, throw it up. Good-
afternoon,” and without more formal leave-
taking he departed.
“It is of no use talking to you, Phil, I
suppose?” said my uncle.
“I don’t think it is,” I replied; “you won't
say anything to them at home, will you?”
“I am not very likely to meet any of them,
am I?” he answered, without a shade of bitter-
ness—merely stating a fact.
“I suppose I shall not see you again before I
start,” I said, “so I will bid you good-bye
now.”
“Good-bye, my lad; I wish I could see you a
bit wiser and steadier.”
I did not answer him; my heart was very
full, and my eyes too. I had tried, but office-
work was not in me, and I felt it was just as
vain to ask me to sit on a stool and pore over
writing and figures as to think a person born
destitute of musical ability could compose an
opera.
Of course I went straight to Patty; though
we were not then married, though sometimes it.


70 TIIE OPEN DOOR.
seemed to me as if we never should be married,
she was my better half then as she is my better
half now.
She did not throw cold water on the project;
she did not discourage me. What she said, with
her dear face aglow with excitement, was, “I
only wish, Phil, I was going with you.” Heaven
knows so did I.
Next morning I was up before the milkman.
I had told my people over-night I should be
going out of town on business. Patty and I
settled the whole plan in detail. I was to
breakfast and dress there, for I meant to go
down to Ladlow in my volunteer garments.
That was a subject upon which my poor father
and I never could agree; he called volunteering
child's play, and other things equally hard to
bear; whilst my brother, a very carpet warrior
to my mind, was never weary of ridiculing the
force, and chaffing me for imagining I was “a
soldier.” -
Patty and I had talked matters over, and
settled, as I have said, that I should dress at
her father's.
A young fellow I knew had won a revolver at
a raffle, and willingly lent it to me. With that
and my rifle I felt I could conquer an army.
It was a lovely afternoon when I found my-
self walking through leafy lanes in the heart of


TIIE OPEN DOOH. 71
Meadowshire. With every vein of my heart I
loved the country, and the country was looking
its best just then: grass ripe for the mower,
grain forming in the ear, rippling streams,
dreamy rivers, old orchards, quaint cottages.
“Oh that I had never to go back to Lon-
don,” I thought, for I am one of the few people
left on earth who love the country and hate
cities. I walked on, I walked a long way,
and being uncertain as to my road, asked a
gentleman who was slowly riding a powerful
roan horse under arching trees—a gentleman
accompanied by a young lady mounted on a
stiff white pony—my way to Ladlow Hall.
“That is Ladlow Hall,” he answered, pointing
with his whip over the fence to my left hand. I
thanked him and was going on, when he said:
“No one is living there now.”
“I am aware of that,” I answered.
He did not say anything more, only cour-
teously bade me good-day, and rode off. The
young lady inclined her head in acknowledg-
ment of my uplifted cap, and smiled kindly.
Altogether I felt pleased, little things always
did please me. It was a good beginning—half-
way to a good ending !
When I got to the Lodge I showed Mr.
Carrison's letter to the woman, and received
the key.


12 THE OPEN DOOI.
“You are not going to stop up at the Hall
alone, are you, sir?” she asked.
“Yes, I am,” I answered, uncompromisingly,
so uncompromisingly that she said no more.
The avenue led straight to the house; it was
uphill all the way, and bordered by rows of
the most magnificent limes I ever beheld. A
light iron fence divided the avenue from the
park, and between the trunks of the trees I
could see the deer browsing and cattle graz-
ing. Ever and anon there came likewise to
my ear the sound of a sheep-bell.
It was a long avenue, but at length I stood
in front of the Hall—a square, solid-looking,
old-fashioned house, three stories high, with
no basement; a flight of steps up to the prin-
cipal entrance; four windows to the right of
the door, four windows to the left; the whole
building flanked and backed with trees; all
the blinds pulled down, a dead silence brood-
ing over the place: the sun westering behind
the great trees studding the park. I took all
this in as I approached, and afterwards as I
stood for a moment under the ample porch ;
then, remembering the business which had
brought me so far, I fitted the great key in the
lock, turned the handle, and entered Ladlow
Hall.
For a minute—stepping out of the bright


THE OPEN DOOR. 73
sunlight—the place looked to me so dark that
I could scarcely distinguish the objects by
which I was surrounded; but my eyes soon
grew accustomed to the comparative darkness,
and I found I was in an immense hall, lighted
from the roof; a magnificent old oak staircase
conducted to the upper rooms.
The floor was of black and white marble.
There were two fireplaces, fitted with dogs
for burning wood; around the walls hung
pictures, antlers, and horns, and in odd niches
and corners stood groups of statues, and the
figures of men in complete suits of armour.
To look at the place outside, no one would
have expected to find such a hall. I stood
lost in amazement and admiration, and then
I began to glance more particularly around.
Mr. Carrison had not given me any instruc-
tions by which to identify the ghostly chamber
—which I concluded would most probably be
found on the firstfloor. -
I knew nothing of the story connected with
it—if there were a story. On that point I had
left London as badly provided with mental as
with actual luggage—worse provided, indeed,
for a hamper, packed by Patty, and a small bag
were coming over from the station; but regard-
ing the mystery I was perfectly unencumbered.
I had not the faintest idea in which apartment


74 THE OPEN DOOR.
it resided. Well, I should discover that, no
doubt, for myself ere long.
I looked around me-doors—doors—doors.
I had never before seen so many doors together
all at once. Two of them stood open—one
wide, the other slightly ajar.
“I’ll just shut them as a beginning,” I
thought, “before I go upstairs.”
The doors were of oak, heavy, well-fitting,
furnished with good locks and sound handles.
After I had closed I tried them. Yes, they
were quite secure. I ascended the great stair-
case feeling curiously like an intruder, paced
the corridors, entered the many bed-chambers
—some quite bare of furniture, others contain-
ing articles of an ancient fashion, and no doubt
of considerable value-chairs, antique dressing-
tables, curious wardrobes, and such like. For
the most part the doors were closed, and I shut
those that stood open before making my way
into the attics. - 4.
I was greatly delighted with the attics. The
windows lighting them did not, as a rule, over-
look the front of the Hall, but commanded
wide views over wood, and valley, and mead :w.
Leaning out of one, I could see, that to the
right of the Hall, the ground, thickly planted,
shelved down to a stream, which came out into
the daylight a little distance beyond the planta-


THE OPEN DOOR. 75
tion, and meandered through the deer park.
At the back of the Hall the windows looked
out on nothing save a dense wood and a portion
of the stable-yard, whilst on the side nearest
the point from whence I had come there were
spreading gardens surrounded by thick yew
hedges, and kitchen-gardens protected by high
walls; and further on a farmyard, where I could
perceive cows and oxen, and, further still, lux-
uriant meadows, and fields glad with waving
COrn.
“What a beautiful place l”. I said. “Carri-
son must have been a duffer to leave it; ” and
then I thought what a great ramshackle house
it was for anyone to be in all alone.
Getting heated with my long walk, I suppose,
made me feel chilly, for I shivered as I drew
my head in from the last dormer window, and
prepared to go downstairs again.
In the attics, as in the other parts of the
house I had as yet explored, I closed the doors,
when there were keys locking them; when
there were not, trying them, and in all cases,
leaving them securely fastened.
When I reached the ground-floor the evening
was drawing on apace, and I felt that if I
wanted to explore the whole house before dusk
I must hurry my proceedings.
“I’ll take the kitchens next,” I decided, and


76 THE OPEN DOOR.
so made my way to a wilderness of domestic
offices lying to the rear of the great hall.
Stone passages, great kitchens, an immense
servants'-hall, larders, pantries, coal-cellars, beer-
cellars, laundries, brewhouses, housekeeper's
room—it was not of any use lingering over
these details. The mystery that troubled Mr.
Carrison could scarcely lodge amongst cinders
and empty bottles, and there did not seem much
else left in this part of the building.
I would go through the living-rooms, and
then decide as to the apartments I should
occupy myself.
The evening shadows were drawing on apace,
so I hurried back into the hall, feeling it was a
weird position to be there all alone with those
ghostly hollow figures, of men in armour, and
the statues on which the moon's beams must fall
so coldly. I would just look through the
lower apartments and then kindle a fire. I had
seen quantities of wood in a cupboard close at
hand, and felt that beside a blazing hearth, and
after a good cup of tea I should not feel the
solitary sensation which was oppressing me.
The sun had sunk below the horizon by this
time, for to reach Ladlow I had been obliged to
travel by cross lines of railway, and wait besides
for such trains as condescended to carry third-
class passengers; but there was still light


THE OPEN DOOR 77
enough in the hall to see all objects distinctly.
With my own eyes I saw that one of the doors
I had shut with my own hands was standing
widel,
I turned to the door on the other side of the
hall. It was as I had left it—closed. This,
then, was the room—this with the open door.
For a second I stood appalled; I think I was
fairly frightened.
That did not last long, however. There lay
the work I had desired to undertake, the foe I
had offered to fight; so without more ado I’
shut the door and tried it.
“Now I will walk to the end of the hall and
see what happens,” I considered. I did so. I
walked to the foot of the grand staircase and
back again, and looked.
The door stood wide open.
I went into the room, after just a spasm of
irresolution—went in and pulled up the blinds:
a good-sized room, twenty by twenty (I knew,
because I paced it afterwards), lighted by two
long windows.
The floor, of polished oak, was partially
covered with a Turkey carpet. There were two
recesses beside the fireplace, one fitted up as a
bookcase, the other with an old and elaborately
carved cabinet. I was astonished also to find a
bedstead in an apartment so little retired from


78 TIME OIPEN DOOR.
the traffic of the house; and there were also
some chairs of an obsolete make, covered, so far
as I could make out, with faded tapestry.
Beside the bedstead, which stood against the wall
opposite to the door, I perceived another door.
It was fast locked, the only locked door I had as
yet met with in the interior of the house. It
was a dreary, gloomy room: the dark panelled
walls; the black, shining floor; the windows
high from the ground; the antique furniture;
the dull four-post bedstead, with dingy velvet
curtains; the gaping chimney; the silk counter-
pane that looked like a pall.
“Any crime might have been committed in
such a room,” I thought, pettishly; and then I
looked at the door critically.
Someone had been at the trouble of fitting
bolts upon it, for when I passed out I not
merely shut the door securely, but bolted it
as well.
“I will go and get some wood, and then look
at it again,” I soliloquised. When I came back
it stood wide open once more.
“Stay open, then l” I cried in a fury. “I
won't trouble myself any more with you
to-night!”
Almost as I spoke the words, there came a
ring at the front-door. Echoing through the
desolate house, the peal in the then state of my


THE OPEN DOOR. 79
nerves startled me beyond expression.
It was only the man who had agreed to bring
over my traps. I bade him lay them down in
the hall, and, while looking out some small
silver, asked where the nearest post-office was to
be found. Not far from the park gates, he said;
if I wanted any letter sent, he would drop it in
the box for me; the mail-cart picked up the bag
at ten o'clock. -
I had nothing ready to post then, and told
him so. Perhaps the money I gave was more
than he expected, or perhaps the dreariness of
my position impressed him as it had impressed
me, for he paused with his hand on the lock,
and asked: . . . . * - 5
“Are you going to stop here all alone,
master?”
“All alone,” I answered, with such cheerful-
ness as was possible under the circumstances.
“That's the room, you know,” he said,
nodding in the direction of the open door, and
dropping his voice to a whisper.
“Yes, I know,” I replied.
“What, you’ve been trying to shut it already,
have you? Well, you are a game one!” And
with this complimentary if not very respectful
comment he hastened out of the house. Evi-
dently he had no intention of proffering his
services towards the solution of the mystery.


8o THE OPEN DOOR.
I cast one glance at the door—it stood wide
open. Through the windows I had left bare to
the night, moonlight was beginning to stream
cold and silvery. Before I did aught else I felt
I must write to Mr. Carrison and Patty, so
straightway I hurried to one of the great tables
in the hall, and lighting a candle my thoughtful
little girl had provided, with many other things,
sat down and dashed off the two epistles.
Then down the long avenue, with its myste-
rious lights and shades, with the moonbeams
glinting here and there, playing at hide-and-seek
round the boles of the trees and through the
tracery of quivering leaf and stem, I walked as
fast as if I were doing a match against time.
It was delicious, the scent of the summer
odours, the smell of the earth; if it had not
been for the door I should have felt too happy.
As it was
“Look here, Phil,” I said, all of a sudden;
“life's not child's play, as uncle truly remarks.
That door is just the trouble you have now to
face, and you must face it! But for that door
you would never have been here. I hope you
are not going to turn coward the very first night.
Courage!—that is your enemy-conquer it.”
“I will try,” my other self answered back. “I
can but try. I can but fail.”
The post-office was at Ladlow Hollow, a little


THE OPEN i) C/OR. 81
hamlet through which the stream I had remarked
dawdling on its way across the park flowed
swiftly, spanned by an ancient bridge.
As I stood by the door of the little shop, ask-
ing some question of the postmistress, the same
gentleman I had met in the afternoon mounted
on his roan horse, passed on foot. He wished me
good-night as he went by, and nodded familiarly
to my companion, who curtseyed her acknow-
ledgments.
“His lordship ages fast,” she remarked, follow-
ing the retreating figure with her eyes.
“His lordship,” I repeated. “Of whom are
you speaking?”
“Of Lord Ladlow,” she said.
“Oh ! I have never seen him,” I answered,
puzzled.
“Why, that was Lord Ladlow !” she ex-
claimed.
You may be sure I had something to think
about as I walked back to the Hall—something
beside the moonlight and the sweet night-scents,
and the rustle of beast and bird and leaf, that
make silence seem more eloquent than noise
away down in the heart of the country.
Lord Ladlow ! my word, I thought he was
hundreds, thousands of miles away; and here
I find him—he walking in the opposite di-
rection from his own home—I an inmate of
G


82 THE OPEN DOOR.
his desolate abode. Hi!—what was that ? I
heard a noise in a shrubbery close at hand, and
in an instant I was in the thick of the underwood.
Something shot out and darted into the cover of
the further plantation. I followed, but I could
catch never a near glimpse of it. I did not know
the lie of the ground sufficiently to course with
success, and I had at length to give up the hunt
—heated, baffled, and annoyed.
When I got into the house the moon's beams
were streaming down upon the hall; I could see
every statue, every square of marble, every
piece of armour. For all the world it seemed
to me like something in a dream; but I was
tired and sleepy, and decided I would not
trouble about fire or food, or the open door,
till the next morning: I would go to sleep.
With this intention I picked up some of my
traps and carried them to a room on the first
floor I had selected as small and habitable. I
went down for the rest, and this time chanced
to lay my hand on my rifle.
It was wet. I touched the floor—it was wet
likewise.
I never felt anything like the thrill of delight
which shot through me. I had to deal with
flesh and blood, and I would deal with it,
heaven helping me.
The next morning broke clear and bright. I


THE OPEN DOOR. 83
was up with the lark—had washed, dressed,
breakfasted, explored the house before the post-
mnan came with my letters.
One from Mr. Carrison, one from Patty, and
one from my uncle: I gave the man half-a-crown,
I was so delighted, and said I was afraid my
being at the Hall would cause him some
additional trouble. -
“No, sir,” he answered, profuse in his expres-
sions of gratitude; “I pass here every morning
on my way to her ladyship's.”
: “Who is her ladyship?” I asked.
“The Dowager Lady Ladlow,” he answered
—“the old lord's widow.”
“And where is her place?” I persisted.
“If you keep on through the shrubbery and
across the water-fall, you come to the house
about a quarter of a mile further up the stream.”
He departed, after telling me there was only
one post a day; and I hurried back to the room
in which I had breakfasted, carrying my letters
with me.
I opened Mr. Carrison's first. The gist of it
was, “Spare no expense; if you run short of
money telegraph for it.”
I opened my uncle's next. He implored me
to return; he had always thought me hair.
brained, but he felt a deep interest in and affec-
tion for me, and thought he could get me a good


84 TIIE OPEN DOOR.
berth if I would only try to settle down and
promise to stick to my work. The last was from
Patty. O Patty, God bless you ! Such women,
Ifancy, the men who fight best in battle, who stick
last to a sinking ship, who are firm in life's
struggles, who are brave to resist temptation,
must have known and loved. I can't tell you
more about the letter, except that it gave me
strength to go on to the end.
I spent the forenoon considering that door.
I looked at it from within and from without. I
eyed it critically. I tried whether there was
any reason why it should fly open, and I found
that so long as I remained on the threshold it
remained closed; if I walked even so far away
as the opposite side of the hall, it swung
wide.
Do what I would it burst from latch and
bolt. I could not lock it because there was no
key. Well, before two o'clock I confess I was
baffled.
At two there came a visitor—none other than
Lord Ladlow himself. Sorely I wanted to
take his horse round to the stables, but he would
not hear of it.
“Walk beside me across the park, if you will
be so kind,” he said; “I want to speak to
you.”
We went together across the park, and before


THE OPEN DOOR. 85
we parted I felt I could have gone through fire
and water for this simple-spoken nobleman.
“You must not stay here ignorant of the
rumours which are afloat,” he said. “Of
course, when I let the place to Mr. Carrison I
knew nothing of the open door.”
“Did you not, sir?—my lord, I mean,” I
stammered.
He smiled. “Do not trouble yourself about
my title, which, indeed, carries a very empty
state with it, but talk to me as you might to
a friend. I had no idea there was any ghost
story connected with the Hall, or I should have
kept the place empty.”
I did not exactly know what to answer, so
I remained silent.
“How did you chance to be sent here?” he
asked, after a pause.
I told him. When the first shock was over,
a lord did not seem very different from anybody
else. If an emperor had taken a morning
canter across the park, I might, supposing him
equally affable, have spoken as familiarly to
him as to Lord Ladlow. My mother always said
I entirely lacked the bump of veneration!
Beginning at the beginning, I repeated the
whole story, from Parton's remark about the
sovereign to Mr. Carrison's conversation with my
uncle. When I had left London behind in the


$6 THE OPEN DOOR.
narrative, however, and arrived at the Hall, I
became somewhat more reticent. After all, it
was his Hall people could not live in—his door
that would not keep shut; and it seemed to me
these were facts he might dislike being forced
upon his attention.
But he would have it. What had I seen?
what did I think of the matter? Very honestly
I told him I did not know what to say. The
door certainly would not remain shut, and there
seemed no human agency to account for its
persistent opening; but then, on the other hand,
ghosts generally did not tamper with fire-arms,
and my rifle, though not loaded, had been tam-
pered with—I was sure of that. -
My companion listened attentively. “You are
not frightened, are you?” he inquired at length.
“Not now,” I answered. “The door did
give me a start last evening, but I am not afraid
of that since I find someone else is afraid of a
bullet.” - -
He did not answer for a minute; then he
said:– . . . . . .
“The theory people have set up about the
open door is this: As in that room my uncle
was murdered, they say the door will never
remain shut till the murderer is discovered.”
“Murdered!” I did not like the word at all;
it made me feel chill and uncomfortable.


THE OPEN DOOR. 87
“Yes—he was murdered sitting in his chair,
and the assassin has never been discovered. At
first many persons inclined to the belief that I
killed him, indeed many are of that opinion
still.”
“But you did not, sir— there is not a word of
truth in that story, is there?”
He laid his hand on my shoulder as he said:
“No, my lad; not a word. I loved the old
man tenderly. Even when he disinherited me
for the sake of his young wife, I was sorry, but
not angry; and when he sent for me and assured
me he had resolved to repair that wrong, I tried
to induce him to leave the lady a handsome sum
in addition to her jointure.
“If you do not, people may think she has
not been the source of happiness you expected,”
I added. - - -
“Thank you, Hal,” he said. “You are a
good fellow; we will talk further about this to-
morrow;” and then he bade me good-night.
“Before morning broke—it was in the sum-
mer two years ago—the household was aroused
with a fearful scream. It was his death-cry.
He had been stabbed from behind in the neck.
He was seated in his chair writing—writing a
letter to me. But for that I might have found
it harder to clear myself than was the case; for
his solicitors came forward, and said he had


88 THE OPEN DOOR.
signed a will leaving all his personalty to me—
he was very rich-unconditionally, only three
days previously. That, of course, supplied the
motive, as my lady's lawyer put it. She was
very vindictive, spared no expense in trying to
prove my guilt, and said openly she would never
rest till she saw justice done, if it cost her the
whole of her fortune. The letter lying before
the dead man, over which blood had spurted, she
declared must have been placed on his table by me;
but the coroner saw there was an animus in this, for
the few opening lines stated my uncle's desire to
confide in me his reasons for changing his will
—reasons, he said, that involved his honour, as
they had destroyed his peace. “In the state-
ment you will find sealed up with my will in
At that point he was dealt his death-blow.
The papers were never found, and the will was
never proved. My lady put in the former will,
leaving her everything. Ill as I could afford
to go to law, I was obliged to dispute the
matter, and the lawyers are at it still, and very
likely will continue at it for years. When I lost
my good name, I lost my good health, and had
to go abroad; and while I was away, Mr.
Carrison took the Hall.
“Till I returned, I never heard a word about
the open door. My solicitors said Mr. Carrison
was behaving badly: but I think now I must see


THE OPEN DOOR. " 89
them or him, and consider what can be done in
the affair. As for yourself, it is of vital import-
ance to me that this mystery should be cleared
up, and if you are really not timid, stay on. I
am too poor to make rash promises, but you
won't find me ungrateful.”
“Oh, my lord!” I cried—the address slipped
quite easily and naturally off my tongue—“I
don't want any more money or anything, if I
can only show Patty's father I am good for
something 99 -
“Who is Patty?” he asked.
He read the answer in my face, for he said no
In 101°C.
“Should you like to have a good dog for
company?” he inquired after a pause.
I hesitated; then I said:—
“No, thank you. I would rather watch and
hunt for myself.”
And as I spoke, the remembrance of that
“something” in the shrubbery recurred to
me, and I told him I thought there had
been someone about the place the previous
evening.
“Poachers,” he suggested; but I shook my
head.
“A girl or a woman I imagine. However, I
think a dog might hamper me.”
He went away, and I returned to the house.


90 TIME OPEN DOOR.
I never left it all day. I did not go into the
garden, or the stable-yard, or the shrubbery, or
anywhere; I devoted myself solely and exclu-
sively to that door.
If I shut it once, I shut it a hundred times,
and always with the same result. Do what I
would, it swung wide. Never, however, when
I was looking at it. So long as I could
endure to remain, it stayed shut—the instant I
turned my back, it stood open.
About four o'clock I had another visitor; no
other than Lord Ladlow's daughter—the
Honourable Beatrice, riding her funny little
white pony. -
She was a beautiful girl of fifteen or there-
abouts, and she had the sweetest smile you
CVCI S3W.
“Papa sent me with this,” she said; “he
would not trust any other messenger," and she
put a piece of paper in my hand.
“Keep your food under lock and key; buy what
gou require yourself. Get your water from the
pump in the stable-yard. I am going from home;
but if you want anything, go or send to Iny
daughter.” - -
“Any answer?” she asked, patting her
pony's neck.
“Tell his lordship, if you please, I will “keep
my powder dry !’” I replied.


THE OPEN DOOR. 91
“You have made papa look so happy,” she
said, still patting that fortunate pony.
“If it is in my power, I will make him look
happier still, Miss ” and I hesitated, not
knowing how to address her.
“Call me Beatrice,” she said, with an enchant
ing grace; then added, slily, “Papa promises
me I shall be introduced to Patty ere long,”
and before I could recover from my astonish-
ment, she had tightened the bit and was turn-
ing across the park.
“One moment, please,” I cried. “You can
do something for me.”
“What is it?” and she came back, trotting
over the great sweep in front of the house.
“Lend me your pony for a minute.”
She was off before I could even offer to
help her alight-off, and gathering up her
habit dexterously with one hand, led the docile
old sheep forward with the other.
I took the bridle—when I was with horses
I felt amongst my own kind—stroked the pony,
pulled his ears, and let him thrust his nose
into my hand.
Miss Beatrice is a countess now, and a
happy wife and mother; but I sometimes see
her, and the other night she took me carefully
into a conservatory and asked:— :
“Do you remember Toddy, Mr. Edlyd?”


92 THE OPEN DOOR.
“Remember him l” I exclaimed; “I can
never forget him !”
“He is dead!” she told me, and there were
tears in her beautiful eyes as she spoke the
words. “Mr. Edlyd, I loved Toddy!”
Well, I took Toddy up to the house, and
under the third window to the right hand. He
was a docile creature, and let me stand on
the saddle while I looked into the only room
in Iadlow Hall I had been unable to enter.
It was perfectly bare of furniture, there
was not a thing in it—not a chair or table,
not a picture on the walls, or ornament on
the chimney-piece.
“That is where my grand-uncle's valet slept,”
said Miss Beatrice. “It was he who first ran
in to help him the night he was murdered.”
“Where is the valet P” I asked.
“Dead,” she answered. “The shock killed
him. He loved his master more than he loved
himself.”
I had seen all I wished, so I jumped off the
saddle, which I had carefully dusted with a
branch plucked from a lilac tree; between jest
and earnest pressed the hem of Miss Beatrice's
habit to my lips as I arranged its folds; saw
her wave her hand as she went at a hand-
gallop across the park; and then turned back
once again into the lonely house, with the


THE OPEN DOOR. 93
determination to solve the mystery attached
to it or die in the attempt.
Why, I cannot explain, but before I went to
bed that night, I drove a gimlet I found in
stables hard into the floor, and said to the
door :
“Now I am keeping you open.”
When I went down in the morning the
door was close shut, and the handle of the
gimlet broken off short, lying in the hall.
I put my hand to wipe my forehead, it was
dripping with perspiration. I did not know
what to make of the place at all ! I went out
into the open air for a few minutes; when I
returned the door again stood wide.
If I were to pursue in detail the days
and nights that followed, I should weary my
readers. I can only say they changed my life.
The solitude, the solemnity, the mystery, pro-
duced an effect I do not profess to understand,
but that I cannot regret.
I have hesitated about writing of the end,
but it must come, so let me hasten to it.
Though feeling convinced that no human
agency did or could keep the door open, I
was certain that some living person had means
of access to the house which I could not
discover. This was made apparent in trifles
which might well have escaped unnoticed


94 THE OPEN DOOR.
had several, or even two people occupied the
mansion, but that in my solitary position it
was impossible to overlook. A chair would
be misplaced, for instance; a path would be
visible over a dusty floor; my papers I found
were moved; my clothes touched—letters I
carried about with me, and kept under my
pillow at night; still the fact remained, that
when I went to the post-office, and while I
was asleep, some one did wander over the
house. On Lord Ladlow's return I meant to
ask him for some further particulars of his
uncle's death, and I was about to write to
Mr. Carrison and beg permission to have the
door where the valet had slept broken open,
when one morning, very early indeed, I spied
a hair-pin lying close beside it.
What an idiot. I had been 1. If I wanted to
solve the mystery of the open door, of course I
must keep watch in the room itself. The door
would not stay wide unless there was a reason
for it, and most certainly a hair-pin could
not have got into the house without assistance.
I made up my mind what I should do—that I
would go to the post early, and take up my posi-
tion about the hour I hall hitherto started for
Ladlew Hollow. I felt on the eve of a dis-
covery, and longed for the day to pass, that the
night might come. -


TRIE OPEN DOOR. 95
It was a lovely morning; the weather had
been exquisite during the whole week, and I
flung the hall-door wide to let in the sunshine
and the breeze. As I did so, I saw there was a
basket on the top step—a basket filled with rare
and beautiful fruit and flowers.
Mr. Carrison had let off the gardens attached
to Ladlow Hall for the season—he thought he
might as well save something out of the fire, he
said, so my fare had not been varied with deli-
cacies of that kind. I was very fond of fruit in
those days, and seeing a card addressed to me, I
instantly selected a tempting peach, and ate it a
little greedily, perhaps.
I might say I had barely swallowed the last
morsel, when Lord Ladlow's caution recurred to
me. The fruit had a curious flavour—there was
a strange taste hanging about my palate. For a
moment, sky, trees and park swam before my
eyes; then I made up my mind what to do.
I smelt the fruit—it had all the same faint
odour; then I put some in my pocket—took the
basket and locked it away—walked round to the
farmyard—asked for the loan of a horse that
was generally driven in a light cart, and in less
than half an hour was asking in Ladlow to be
directed to a doctor.
Rather cross at being disturbed so early, he
was at first inclined to pooh-pooh my idea; but


96 TIME OPEN DOOR.
I made him cut open a pear, and satisfy himself
the fruit had been tampered with.
“It is fortunate you stopped at the first
peach,” he remarked, after giving me a draught,
and some medicine to take back, and advising
me to keep in the open air as much as possible.
“I should like to retain this fruit and see you
again to-morrow.”
We did not think then on how many morrows
we should see each other |
Riding across to Ladlow, the postman had
given me three letters, but I did not read them
till I was seated under a great tree in the park,
with a basin of milk and a piece of bread beside
Ine,
Hitherto, there had been nothing exciting in
my correspondence. Patty's epistles were al-
ways delightful, but they could not be regarded
as sensational; and about Mr. Carrison's there
was a monotony I had begun to find tedious.
On this occasion, however, no fault could be
found on that score. The contents of his letter
greatly surprised me. He said Lord Ladlow
had released him from his bargain—that I
could, therefore, leave the Hall at once. He
enclosed me ten pounds, and said he would
consider how he could best advance my in-
terests; and that I had better call upon him
at his private house when I returned to London.


THE OPEN DOOR. 97
“I do not think I shall leave Ladlow yet
awhile,” I considered, as I replaced his letter in
its envelope. “Before I go I should like to
make it hot for whoever sent me that fruit;
so unless Lord Ladlow turns me out I'll stay a
little longer.”
Lord Ladlow did not wish me to leave. The
third letter was from him.
“I shall return home to-morrow night,” he
wrote, “and see you on Wednesday. I have
arranged satisfactorily with Mr. Carrison, and as
the Hall is my own again, I mean to try to solve
the mystery it contains myself. If you choose to
stop and help me to do so, you would confer a
favour, and I will try to make it worth your
while.”
“I will keep watch to-night, and see if I can-
not give you some news to-morrow,” I thought.
And then I opened Patty's letter—the best,
dearest, sweetest letter any postman in all the
world could have brought me.
If it had not been for what Lord Ladlow said
about his sharing my undertaking, I should not
have chosen that night for my vigil. I felt ill
and languid—fancy, no doubt, to a great degree
inducing these sensations. I had lost energy
in a most unaccountable manner. The long,
lonely days had told upon my spirits—the
fidgety feeling which took me a hundred times
H


93 THE OPEN LOOR.
in the twelve hours to look upon the open door,
to close it, and to count how many steps I could
take before it opened again, had tried my men-
tal strength as a perpetual blister might have
worn away my physical. In no sense was I fit
for the task I had set myself, and yet I deter-
mined to go through with it. Why had Inever
before decided to watch in that mysterious
chamber? Had I been at the bottom of my
heart afraid P. In the bravest of us there are
depths of cowardice that lurk unsuspected till
they engulf our courage.
The day wore on—the long, dreary day;
evening approached—the night shadows closed
over the Hall. The moon would not rise for a
couple of hours more. Everything was still as
death. The house had never before seemed to
me so silent and so deserted.
I took a light, and went up to my accustomed
room, moving about for a time as though pre-
paring for bed; then I extinguished the candle,
softly opened the door, turned the key, and put
it in my pocket, slipped softly downstairs, across
the hall, through the open door. Then I knew I
had been afraid, for I felt a thrill of terror as
in the dark I stepped over the threshold. I
paused and listened—there was not a sound-
the night was still and sultry, as though a storm
were brewing. Not a leaf seemed moving—the


THE OPEN DOOR. 99
very mice remained in their holes! Noiselessly
I made my way to the other side of the room.
There was an old-fashioned easy-chair between
the bookshelves and the bed, I sat down in it,
shrouded by the heavy curtain.
The hours passed—were ever hours so long?
The moon rose, came and looked in at the win-
dows, and then sailed away to the west; but not
a sound, no, not even the cry of a bird. I
seemed to myself a mere collection of nerves.
Every part of my body appeared twitching. It
was agony to remain still; the desire to move
became a form of torture. Ah! a streak in the
sky; morning at last, Heaven be praised ! Had
ever anyone before so welcomed the dawn? A
thrush began to sing—was there ever heard
such delightful music? It was the morning
twilight, soon the sun would rise; soon that
awful vigil would be over, and yet I was no
nearer the mystery than before. Hush ! what
was that ? It had come. After the hours of
watching and waiting; after the long night
and the long suspense, it came in a moment.
The locked door opened—so suddenly, so
silently, that I had barely time to draw back
behind the curtain, before I saw a woman in the
room. She went straight across to the other
door and closed it, securing it as I saw with bolt
and lock. Then just glancing around, she made


IOO THE ONPEN DOOR.
her way to the cabinet, and with a key she pro-
duced shot back the wards. I did not stir, I
scarcely breathed, and yet she seemed uneasy.
Whatever she wanted to do she evidently was in
haste to finish, for she took out the drawers one
by one, and placed them on the floor; then, as
the light grew better, I saw her first kneel on
the floor, and peer into every aperture, and sub-
sequently repeat the same process, standing on a
chair she drew forward for the purpose. A
slight lithe woman, not a lady, clad all in black
—not a bit of white about her. What on earth
could she want? In a moment it flashed upon
me—THE WILL AND THE LETTER | SHE IS SEARCII-
ING FOR THEM.
I sprang from my concealment—I had her in
my grasp ; but she tore herself out of my hands,
fighting like a wild-cat : she bit, scratched,
kicked, shifting her body as though she had not
a bone in it, and at last slipped herself free, and
ran wildly towards the door by which she
had entered.
If she reached it, she would escape me. I
rushed across the room and just caught her
dress as she was on the threshold. My blood
was up, and I dragged her back: she had the
strength of twenty devils, I think, and struggled
as surely no woman ever did before.
“I do not want to kill you,” I managed to


THE OPEN DOOR. IOf
say in gasps—“but I will if you do not keep
quiet.”
“Bah!” she cried; and before I knew what
she was doing she had the revolver out of my
pocket and fired.
She missed: the ball just glanced off my
sleeve. I fell upon her—I can use no other ex-
pression, for it had become a fight for life, and
no man can tell the ferocity there is in him till
he is placed as I was then—fell upon her, and
seized the weapon. She would not let it go, but
I held her so tight she could not use it. She bit
my face; with her disengaged hand she tore my
hair. She turned and twisted and slipped about
like a snake, but I did not feel pain or anything
except a deadly horror lest my strength should
give out.
Could I hold out much longer? She made
one desperate plunge, I felt the grasp with
which I held her slackening; she felt it too, and
seizing her advantage tore herself free, and at
the same instant fired again blindly, and again
missed.
Suddenly there came a look of horror into
her eyes—a frozen expression of fear.
“See l’ she cried; and flinging the revolver
at me, fled.
I saw, as in a momentary flash, that the door
I had beheld locked, stood wide—that there


iO2 THE OPEN DOOR.
stood beside the table an awful figure, with up-
lifted hand—and then I saw no more. I was
struck at last; as she threw the revolver at me
she must have pulled the trigger, for I felt some-
thing like red-hot iron enter my shoulder, and I
could but rush from the room before I fell
senseless on the marble pavement of the hall.
When the postman came that morning, finding
no one stirring, he looked through one of the
long windows that flanked the door; then he
ran to the farm-yard and called for help.
“There is something wrong inside,” he cried.
“That young gentleman is lying on the floor in
a pool of blood.”
As they rushed round to the front of the
house they saw Lord Ladlow riding up the
avenue, and breathlessly told him what had
happened.
“Smash in one of the windows.” he said;
“and go instantly for a doctor.”
They laid me on the bed in that terrible room,
and telegraphed for my father. For long I
hovered between life and death, but at length I
recovered sufficiently to be removed to the house
Lord Ladlow owned on the other side of the
Hollow.
Before that time I had told him all I knew,
and begged him to make instant search for the
will.


THE OPEN DOOR. Io3
“Break up the cabinet if necessary,” I en.
treated, “I am sure the papers are there.”
And they were. His lordship got his own,
and as to the scandal and the crime, one was
hushed up and the other remained unpunished.
The dowager and her maid went abroad the very
morning Ilay on the marble pavement at Ladlow
Hall—they never returned.
My lord made that one condition of his silence.
Not in Meadowshire, but in a fairer county
still, I have a farm which I manage, and make
both ends meet comfortably.
Patty is the best wife any man ever possessed
—and I—well, I am just as happy, if a trifle
more serious than of old; but there are times
when a great horror of darkness seems to fall
upon me, and at such periods I cannot endure to
be left alone.


NUT BUSII FARM.
--i-soto-i-o-
CHAPTER I.
W HEN I entered upon the tenancy of Nut
Bush Farm almost the first piece of
news which met me, in the shape of a whispered
rumour, was that “something” had been seen
in the “long field.”
Pressed closely as to what he meant, my
informant reluctantly stated that the “some
thing” took the “form of a man,” and that the
wood and the path leading thereto from
Whittleby were supposed to be haunted.
Now, all this annoyed me exceedingly. I do
not know when I was more put out than by the
intelligence. It is unnecessary to say I did not
elieve in ghosts or anything of that kind, but
my wife being a very nervous, impressionable
woman, and our only child, a delicate weakling,
in the habit of crying himself into fits if left
alone at night without a candle, I really felt at
my wit’s end to imagine what I should do if a
story of this sort reached their ears.


INUT BUSH FARM. IoS
And reach them I knew it must if they came
to Nut Bush Farm, so the first thing I did when
I heard people did not care to venture down the
Beech Walk or through the copse, or across the
long field after dark, or indeed by day, was to
write to say I thought they had both better
remain on at my father-in-law's till I could get
the house thoroughly to rights.
After that I lit my pipe and went out for a
stroll; when I knocked the ashes out of my
pipe and re-entered the sitting room I had made
up my mind. I could not afford to be frightened
away from my tenancy. For weal or for woe I
must stick to Nut Bush Farm.
It was quite by chance I happened to know
anything of the place at first. When I met
with that accident in my employers' service,
which they rated far too highly and recom-
pensed with a liberality I never can feel suffi.
ciently grateful for, the doctors told me plainly
if I could not give up office work and leave
London altogether, they would not give a
year's purchase for my life.
Life seemed very sweet to me then—it
always has done—but just at that period I felt
the pleasant hopes of convalescence, and with
that thousand pounds safely banked, I could not
let it slip away from me. -
“Take a farm,” advised my father-in-law,


106 NUT BUSH FARM.
“though people say a farmer's is a bad trade,
I know many a man who is making money out
of it. Take a farm, and if you want a helping
hand to enable you to stand the racket for a
year or two, why you know I am always
ready.”
I had been bred and born on a farm. My
father held something like fifteen hundred acres
under the principal landowner in his county,
and though it so happened, I could not content
myself at home, but must needs come up to
London to see the lions and seek my fortune,
still I had never forgotten the meadows and
the cornfields, and the cattle, and the orchards,
and the woods and the streams, amongst which
my happy boyhood had been spent. Yes, I
thought I should like a farm—one not too far
from London; and “not too big,” advised my
wife's father.
“The error people make now-a-days,” he
went on, “is spreading their butter over too
large a surface. It is the same in business as
in land—they stretch their arms out too far-
they will try to wade in deep waters—and the
consequence is they never know a day's peace,
and end mostly in the bankruptcy court.”
He spoke as one having authority, and I
knew what he said was quite right. He had
made his money by a very different course of


INUT BUSH FARM. 107
procedure, and I felt I could not follow a
better example.
I knew something about farming, though not
very much. Still, agriculture is like arithmetic,
when once one knows the multiplication table
the rest is not so difficult. I had learned
unconsciously the alphabet of soils and crops
and stock when I was an idle young dog, and
liked nothing better than talking to the
labourers, and accompanying the woodman
when he went out felling trees; and so I did
not feel much afraid of what the result would
be, more especially as I had a good business
head on my shoulders, and enough money to
“stand the racket,” as my father-in-law put
it, till the land began to bring in her increase.
When I got strong and well again after my
long illness—I mean strong and well enough to
go about—I went down to look at a farm which
was advertised as to let in Kent.
According to the statement in the newspaper,
there was no charm that farm lacked; when I
saw it I discovered the place did not possess
one virtue, unless, indeed, an old Tudor house
fast falling to ruins, which would have proved
invaluable to an artist, could be so considered.
Far from a railway, having no advantages of
water carriage, remote from a market, appa-
rently destitute of society. Nor could these


Io8 NUT BUSH FARM.
drawbacks be accounted the worst against it.
The land, poor originally, seemed to have been
totally exhausted. There were fields on which
I do not think a goose could have found subsis-
tence—nothing grew luxuriantly save weels;
it would have taken all my capital to get the
ground clean. Then I saw the fences were
dilapidated, the hedges in a deplorable condi-
tion, and the farm buildings in such a state of
decay I would not have stabled a donkey in
one of them.
Clearly, the King's Manor, which was the
modest name of the place, would not do at
any price, and yet I felt sorry, for the country
around was beautiful, and already the sweet
pure air seemed to have braced up my nerves
and given me fresh energy. Talking to mine
host at the “Bunch of Hops,” in Whittleby, he
advised me to look over the local paper before
returning to London.
“There be a many farms vacant,” he said,
“mayhap you'll light on one to suit.”
To cut a long story short, I did look in the
local paper and found many farms to let, but
not one to suit. There was a drawback to each
—a drawback at least so far as I was concerned.
I felt determined I would not take a large farm
My conviction was then what my conviction
still remains, that it is better to cultivate fifty


NUT BUSH FARM. 109
acres thoroughly, than to crop, stock, clean, and
manure a hundred insufficiently. Besides, I did
not want to spend my strength on wages, or
take a place so large I could not oversee the
workmen on foot. For all these reasons and
many more I came reluctantly to the conclusion
that there was nothing in that part of the
country to suit a poor unspeculative plodder
like myself.
It was a lovely afternoon in May when I
turned my face towards Whittleby, as I thought,
for the last time. In the morning I had taken
train for a farm some ten miles distant and
worked my way back on foot to a “small
cottage with land” a local agent thought might
suit me. But neither the big place nor the
little answered my requirements, much to the
disgust of the auctioneer, who had himself
accompanied us to the cottage under the
impression I would immediately purchase it
and so secure his commission.
Somewhat sulkily he told me a short cut
back to Whittleby, and added as a sort of rider
to all previous statements, the remark:
“You had best look out for what you want
in Middlesex. You'll find nothing of that sort
hereabouts.”
As to the last part of the foregoing sentence
I was quite of his opinion, but I felt so


110 NUT BUSH FARM.
oppressed with the result of all my wanderings
that I thought upon the whole I had better
abandon my search altogether, or else pursue it
in some county very far away indeed—perhaps
in the land of dreams for that matter !
As has been said, it was a lovely afternoon in
May—the hedges were snowy with hawthorn
blossom, the chesnuts were bursting into flower,
the birds were singing fit to split their little
throats, the lambs were dotting the hillsides,
and I—ah! well, I was a boy again, able to
relish all the rich banquet God spreads out day
by day for the delight and nourishment of His
too often thankless children.
When I came to a point half way up some
rising ground where four lanes met and then
wound off each on some picturesque diverse
way, I paused to look around regretfully.
As I did so—some distance below me—along
a long and never-before-traversed lane, I saw
the gleam of white letters on a black board.
“Come,” I thought, “I’ll see what this is at
all events,” and bent my steps towards the
place, which might, for all I knew about it,
have been a ducal mansion or a cockney's
country villa.
The board appeared modestly conspicuous in
the foreground of a young fir plantation, and
simply bore this legend-


MUT BUSH FARM. III
“To BE LET, HousB AND LAND,”
Apply at the “White Dragon.”
“It is a mansion,” I thought, and I walked
on slowly, disappointed.
All of a sudden the road turned a sharp
corner and I came in an instant upon the
prettiest place I had ever seen or ever desire
to See.
I looked at it over a low laurel hedge grow-
ing inside an open paling about four feet high.
Beyond the hedge there was a strip of turf,
green as emeralds, smooth as a bowling green—
then came a sunk fence, the most picturesque
sort of protection the ingenuity of man ever
devised; beyond that, a close-cut lawn which
sloped down to the sunk fence from a house
with projecting gables in the front, the recessed
portion of the building having three windows
on the first floor. Both gables were covered
with creepers, the lawn was girt in by a semi-
circular sweep of forest trees, the afternoon sun
streamed over the grass and tinted the swaying
foliage with a thousand tender lights. Haw-
thorn bushes, pink and white, mingled with
their taller and grander brothers. The chesnuts
here were in flower, the copper beech made a
delightful contrast of colour, and a birch rose
delicate and graceful close beside.
It was like a fairy scene. I passed my hand


II2 NUT BUSH FARM.
across my eyes to assure myself it was all real
Then I thought “if this place be even nearly
within my means I will settle here. My wife
will grow stronger in this paradise—my boy get
more like other lads. Such things as nerves
must be unknown where there is not a sight or
sound to excite them. Nothing but health,
purity, and peace.”
Thus thinking, I tore myself away in search
of the “White Dragon,” the landlord of which
small public sent a lad to show me over the
farm.
“As for the rent,” he said, “you will have to
speak to Miss Gostock herself—she lives at
Chalmont, on the road between here and
Whittleby.”
In every respect the place suited me; it was
large enough, but not too large; had been well
farmed, and was amply supplied with water—a
stream indeed flowing through it; a station was
shortly to be opened, at about half-a-mile's
distance; and most of the produce could be
disposed of to dealers and tradesmen at
Crayshill, a town to which the communication
by rail was direct.
I felt so anxious about the matter, it was
quite a disappointment to find Miss Gostock
from home. Judging from the look of her
house, I did not suppose she could afford to


NUT BUSH FARM. I13
stick out for a long rent, or to let a farm lie idle
for any considerable period. The servant who
appeared in answer to my summons was a sin-
gularly red armed and rough handed Phyllis.
There was only a strip of carpeting laid down
in the hall, the windows were bare of draperies,
and the avenue gate, set a little back from the
main road, was such as I should have felt
ashamed to put in a farm yard.
Next morning I betook myself to Chalmont,
anxiously wondering as I walked along what
the result of my interview would prove.
When I neared the gate, to which uncompli-
mentary reference has already been made, I saw
standing on the other side a figure, wearing a
man's broad-brimmed straw hat, a man's coat,
and a woman's skirt.
I raised my hat in deference to the supposed
sex of this stranger. She put up one finger
to the brim of hers, and said “Servant, Sir.”
Not knowing exactly what to do I laid my
hand upon the latch of the gate and raised it,
but she did not alter her position in the least.
She only asked—“What do you want?”
“I want to see Miss Gostock,” was my answer.
“I am Miss Gostock,” she said; “what is
your business with me?”
I replied meekly that I had come to ask the
rent of Nut Bush Farm.


114 NUT BUSH FARM.
“Have you viewed it?” she enquired
“Yes.” I told her I had been over the place on
the previous afternoon.
“And have you a mind to take it?” she
persisted—“for I am not going to trouble
myself answering a lot of idle enquiries.”
So far from my being an idle enquirer, I
assured the lady that if we could come to terms
about the rent, I should be very glad indeed to
take the farm. I said I had been searching the
neighbourhood within a circuit of ten miles for
some time unsuccessfully, and added, somewhat
unguardedly, I suppose, Nut Bush Farm was
the only place I had met with which at all met
my views.
Standing in an easy attitude, with one arm
resting on the top bar of the gate and one foot
crossed over the other, Miss Gostock surveyed
me, who had unconsciously taken up a similar
position, with an amused smile.
“You must think me a very honest person,
young man,” she remarked.
I answered that I hoped she was, but I had
not thought at all about the matter.
“Or else,” proceeded this extraordinary lady,
“you fancy I am a much greater flat than I
am.”
“On the contrary,” was my reply. “If there
be one impression stronger than another which


NUT BUSH FARM. II5
our short interview has made upon me it is that
you are a wonderfully direct and capable
woman of business.”
She looked at me steadily, and then closed
one eye, which performance, done under the
canopy of that broad-brimmed straw hat, had
the most ludicrous effect imaginable.
“You won't catch me napping,” she observed,
“but, however, as you seem to mean dealing,
come in; I can tell you my terms in two
minutes,” and opening the gate—a trouble she
would not allow me to take off her hands—she
gave me admission.
Then Miss Gostock took off her hat, and
swinging it to and fro began slowly walking up
the ascent leading to Chalmont, I beside her.
“I have quite made up my mind,” she said,
“not to let the farm again without a premium;
my last tenant treated me abominably——”
I intimated I was sorry to hear that, and
waited for further information.
“He had the place at a low rent—a very low
rent. He should not have got it so cheap but
for his covenanting to put so much money in
the soil; and well—I’m bound to say he acted
fair so far as that—he fulfilled that part of his
contract. Nearly two years ago we had a bit of
a quarrel about—well it's no matter what we
fell out over—only the upshot of the affair was


I 16 NUT DUSH FARM.
he gave me due notice to leave at last winter
quarter. At that time he owed about a year
and a-half's rent—for he was a man who never
could bear parting with money—and like a
fool I did not push him for it. What trick do
you suppose he served me for my pains?”
It was simply impossible for me to guess, so
I did not try.
“On the twentieth of December,” went on
Miss Gostock, turning her broad face and curly
grey head—she wore her hair short like a man
—towards me, “he went over to Whittleby,
drew five thousand pounds out of the bank,
was afterwards met going towards home by a
gentleman named Waite, a friend of his. Since
then he has never been seen nor heard of.”
“Bless my soul,” I exclaimed involuntarily.
“You may be very sure I did not bless his
soul,” she snarled out angrily. “The man
bolted with the five thousand pounds, having
previously sold off all his stock and the bulk of
his produce, and when I distrained for my rent,
which I did pretty smart, I can tell you, there
was scarce enough on the premises to pay the
levy.”
“But what in the world made him bolt?” I
asked, quite unconsciously adopting Miss Gos-
tock's expressive phrase; “as he had so much
money, why did he not pay you your rent?’


NUT BUSH FARM, 117
“Ah! why, indeed,” mocked Miss Gostock.
“Young sir, I am afraid you are a bit of a hum-
bug, or you would have suggested at once there
was a pretty girl at the bottom of the affair.
He left his wife and children, and me—all in
the lurch—and went off with a slip of a girl,
whom I once took, thinking to train up as a
better sort of servant, but was forced to dis-
charge. Oh, the little hussey !”
“Hussey” is not exactly an elegant word
to hear used by a lady, but that employed
by Miss Gostock was in one syllable and less
refined still. Her Saxon was very nervous, and
she was not a bit above helping her meaning
out occasionally by an oath that would have
delighted Queen Bess, and a vigorous ex-
pression which might have won her virgin
Majesty's approval by its coarseness.
Somehow I did not fancy I wanted to hear
anything more about her late tenant and the
pretty girl, and consequently ventured to in-
quire how that gentleman's defalcations bore
upon the question of the rent I should have
to pay.
“I’ll tell you directly,” she said, and as we
had by this time arrived at the house, she
invited me to enter, and led the way into an
old-fashioned parlour that must have been fur-
nished about the time chairs and tables were


118 NUT BUSH FAIRM.
first invented and which did not contain a
single feminine belonging—not even a thimble.
“Sit down,” she commanded, and I sat. “I
have quite made up my mind,” she began, “not
to let the farm again, unless I get a premium
sufficient to insure me against the chances of
possible loss. I mean to ask a very low rent
and—a premium.”
“And what amount of premium do you ex-
pect?” I inquired, doubtfully.
“I Want ,” and here Miss Gostock named
a sum which fairly took my breath away.
“In that case,” I said as soon as I got it
again, “it is useless to prolong this interview; I
can only express my regret for having intruded,
and wish you good morning,” and rising I was
bowing myself out when she stopped me.
“Don’t be so fast,” she cried, “I only said
what I wanted. Now what are you prepared to
give?”
“I can't be buyer and seller too,” I answered,
repeating a phrase the precise meaning of
which, it may here be confessed, I have never
been able exactly to understand.
“Nonsense,” exclaimed Miss Gostock—I am
really afraid the lady used a stronger term—
“if you are anything of a man of business,
fit at all to commence farming, you must have
an idea on the subject. You shall have the


NUT BUSH FARM. II9
land at a pound an acre, and you will give
me for premium—come, how much?”
By what mental process I instantly jumped to
an amount it would be impossible to say, but I
did mention one which elicited from Miss Gos-
tock the remark–
“That won’t do at any price.”
“Very well then,” I said, “we need not talk
any more about the matter.”
“But what will you give?” asked the lady.
“I have told you,” was my answer, “and I
am not given either to haggling or beating
down.”
“You won't make a good farmer,” she
observed.
“If a farmer's time were of any value, which
it generally seems as if it were not,” I answered,
“he would not waste it in splitting a sixpence.”
She laughed, and her laugh was not musical.
“Come now,” she said, “make another bid.”
“No,” I replied, “I have made one and that
is enough. I won't offer another penny.”
“Done then,” cried Miss Gostock, “I accept
your offer—we'll just sign a little memorandum
of agreement, and the formal deeds can be
prepared afterwards. You'll pay a deposit, I
suppose?”
I was so totally taken aback by her accept-
ance of my offer I could only stammer out I


120 NUT BUSH FARM.
was willing to do anything that might be
usual.
“It does not matter much whether it is usual
or not,” she said, “either pay it or I won't keep
the place for you. I am not going to have my
land lying idle and my time taken up for your
pleasure.”
“I have no objection to pay you a deposit,”
I answered.
“That's right,” she exclaimed, “now if you
will just hand me over the writing-desk we can
settle the matter, so far as those thieves of
lawyers will let us, in five minutes.”
Like one in a dream I sat and watched Miss
Gostock while she wrote. Nothing about the
transaction seemed to me real. The farm itself
resembled nothing I had ever before seen with
my waking eyes, and Miss Gostock appeared to
me but as some monstrous figure in a story of
giants and hobgoblins. The man's coat, the
woman's skirt, the hob-nailed shoes, the grisly
hair, the old straw hat, the bare, unfurnished
room, the bright sunshine outside, all struck me
as mere accessories in a play—as nothing which
had any hold on the outside every-day world.
It was drawn—we signed our names. I
handed Miss Gostock over a cheque. She
locked one document in an iron box let into the
wall, and handed me the other, adding, as a


NUT BUSH FARM. 121
~-as- --~~~~
rider, a word of caution about “keeping it safe
and taking care it was not lost.”
Then she went to a corner cupboard, and
producing a square decanter half full of spirits,
set that and two tumblers on the table.
“You don't like much water, I suppose,” she
said, pouring out a measure which frightened
In e.
“I could not touch it, thank you, Miss
Gostock,” I exclaimed; “I dare not do so; I
should never get back to Whittleby.”
For answer she only looked at me contemp-
tuously and said, “D—d nonsense.”
“No nonsense, indeed,” I persisted; “I am
not accustomed to anything of that sort.”
Miss Gostock laughed again, then crossing to
the sideboard she returned with a jug of water,
a very small portion of the contents of which
she mixed with the stronger liquor and raised
to her lips.
“To your good health and prosperity,” she
said, and in one instant the fiery potion was **
swallowed.
“You'll mend of all that,” she remarked, as
she laid down her glass, and wiped her lips in
the simplest manner by passing the back of her
hand over them.
“I hope not, Miss Gostock,” I ventured to
observe.


122 NUT BUSH FARM.
“Why you look quite shocked,” she said;
“did you never see a lady take a mouthful
of brandy before?”
I ventured to hint that I had not, more
particularly so early in the morning.
“Pooh!” she said. “Early in the morn-
1ng or late at night, where's the difference?
However, there was a time when I—but that
was before I had come through so much
trouble. Good-bye for the present, and I hope
we shall get on well together.”
I answered I trusted we should, and was
half-way to the hall-door, when she called
me back.
“I forgot to ask you if you were married,”
she said.
“Yes, I have been married some years,”
I answered.
“That's a pity,” she remarked, and dis-
missed me with a wave of her hand.
“What on earth would have happened had
I not been married,” I considered, as I hurried
down the drive. “Surely she never con-
templated proposing for me herself? But no-
thing she could do would surprise me.”


NUT BUSH FARM. 123
CHAPTER II.
HERE were some repairs I had mentioned
it would be necessary to have executed
before I came to live at Nut Bush Farm, but
when I found Miss Gostock intended to do
them herself—nay, was doing them all herself-
I felt thunderstruck.
On one memorable occasion I came upon
her with a red handkerchief tied round her
head, standing at a carpenter's bench in a
stable yard, planing away, under a sun which
would have killed anybody but a negro or
my landlady.
She painted the gates, and put sash lines
in some of the windows; she took off the
locks, oiled, and replaced them; she mowed
the lawn, and offered to teach me how to
mow ; and lastly, she showed me a book
where she charged herself and paid herself
for every hour's work done.
“I’ve made at least twenty pounds out of
your place,” she said, triumphantly. “Higgs
at Whittleby would not have charged me a
half-penny less for the repairs. The trades-


124 NUT BUSH FARM.
men here won't give me a contract—they say
it is just time thrown away, but I know that
would have been about his figure. Well, the
place is ready for you now, and if you take
my advice, you'll get your grass up as soon
as possible. It's a splendid crop, and if you
hire hands enough, not a drop of rain need
spoil it. If this weather stands you might
cut one day and carry the next.”
I took her advice, and stacked my hay in
magnificent condition. Miss Gostock was good
enough to come over and superintend the
building of the stack, and threatened to split
one man's head open with the pitchfork, and
proposed burying another—she called a “lazy
blackguard”—under a pile of hay.
“I will say this much for IIascot,” she
remarked, as we stood together beside the
stream; “he was a good farmer; where will
you see better or cleaner land?—a pattern I
call it—and to lose his whole future for the
sake of a girl like Sally Powner; leaving his
wife and children on the parish, too !”
“You don’t mean that?” I said.
“Indeed I do. They are all at Crayshill.
The authorities did talk of shifting them, but
I know nothing about what they have done.”
I stood appalled. I thought of my own
poor wife and the little lad, and wondered if


NUT BUSH FARM. 125
any Sally on the face of the earth could
make me desert them.
“It has given the place a bad sort of name,”
remarked Miss Gostock, looking at me side-
ways: “but of course that does not signify to
you.”
“Oh! of course not,” I agreed.
“And don't you be minding any stories;
there are always a lot of stories going about
places.”
I said I did not mind stories. I had lived too
long in London to pay much attention to them.
“That's right,” remarked Miss Gostock, and
negativing my offer to see her home she started
off to Chalmont.
It was not half-an-hour after her departure
when I happened to be walking slowly round
the meadows, from which the newly mown hay
had been carted, that I heard the rumour
which vexed me—“Nut Bush Farm haunted.”
I thought, “I said the whole thing was too
good to last.”
“What, Jack, lost in reverie,” cried my
sister, who had come up from Devonshire to
keep me company, and help to get the furni-
ture a little to rights, entering at the moment,
carrying lights; “supper will be ready in a
minute, and you can dream as much as you
like after you have had something to eat.”


126 NUT BUSH FARM.
I did not say anything to her about my trouble,
which was then indeed no bigger than a man's
hand, but which grew and grew till it attained
terrible proportions. -
What was I to do with my wife and child?
I never could bring them to a place reputed to
be haunted. All in vain I sauntered up and
down the Beech Walk night after night;
walked through the wood—as a rule selected
that route when I went to Whittleby. It did
not produce the slightest effect. Not a farm
servant but eschewed that path townward;
not a girl but preferred spending her Sunday
at home rather than venture under the inter-
lacing branches of the beech trees, or through
the dark recesses of the wood.
It was becoming serious—I did not know
what to do.
One wet afternoon Lolly came in draggled,
but beaming.
“I’ve made a new acquaintance, Jack,” she
said; “a Mrs. Waite—such a nice creature,
but in dreadfully bad health. It came on to
rain when I was coming home, and so I took
refuge under a great tree at the gate of a most
picturesque old house. I had not stood there
long before a servant with an umbrella ap-
peared at the porch to ask if I would not
please to walk in until the storm abated. I


NUT BUSH FARM. 127
waited there ever so long, and we had such a
pleasant talk. She is a most delightful woman,
with a melancholy, pathetic sort of expression
that has been haunting me ever since. She
apologised for not having called—said she was
not strong and could not walk so far. They
keep no conveyance she can drive. Mr. Waite,
who is not at home at present, rides into
Whittleby when anything is wanted.
“I hoped she would not think of standing
on ceremony with me. I was only a farmer's
daughter, and accustomed to plain, homely
ways, and I asked her if I might walk round
and bid her good-bye before I went home.”
“You must not go home yet, Lolly,” I cried,
alarmed; “what in the world should I do with-
out you?”
“Well, you would be a lonely boy,” she
answered, complacently, “with no one to sew
on a button or darn your socks, or make you
eat or go to bed, or do anything you ought to
do.”
I had not spoken a word to her about the
report which was troubling me, and I knew
there must be times when she wondered why
I did not go up to London and fetch my wife
and child to enjoy the bright summer-time; but
Lolly was as good as gold, and never asked me
a question, or even indirectly enquired if Lucy


128 NUT DUSH FARM.
and I had quarrelled, as many another sister
might.
She was as pleasant and fresh to look upon as
a Spring morning, with her pretty brown hair
smoothly braided, her cotton or muslin dresses
never soiled or crumpled, but as nice as though
the laundress had that moment sent them home
-a rose in her belt and her hands never idle—
for ever busy with curtain or blind, or some-
thing her housewifely eyes thought had need
of making or mending.
About ten days after that showery afternoon
when she found shelter under Mrs. Waite's
hospitable roof, I felt surprised when entering
the parlour a few minutes before our early
dinner, I found Lolly standing beside one of
the windows apparently hopelessly lost in the
depths of a brown study.
“Why, Lolly,” I exclaimed, finding she took
no notice of me, “where have you gone to now?
A penny for your thoughts, young lady.”
“They are not worth a penny,” she said, and
turning from the window took some work and
sat down at a little distance from the spot where
I was standing.
I was so accustomed to women, even the best
and gayest of them, having occasional fits of
temper or depression—times when silence on my
part seemed the truest wisdom, that taking no


INUT BUSH FARM. 129
notice of my sister's manner I occupied myself
with the newspaper till dinner was announced.
During the progress of that meal she talked
little and ate still less, but when I was leaving
the room, in order to go out to a field of barley
where the reapers were at work, she asked me
to stop a moment.
“I want to speak to you, Jack,” she said.
“Speak, then,” I answered, with that lack of
ceremony which obtains amongst brothers and
sisters.
• She hesitated for a moment, but did not
speak.
“What on earth is the matter with you?
Lolly,” I exclaimed, “are you sick, or cross, or
sorry,or what?”
“If it must be one of the four,” she answered,
with a dash of her usual manner, “it is “or
what, Jack,” and she came close up to where I
stood and took me sorrowfully by the button
hole.
“Well?” I said, amused, for this had always
been a favourite habit of Lolly's when she
wanted anything from one of the males of her
family.
“Jack, you won’t laugh at me.
“I feel much more inclined to be cross with
you,” I answered. “What are you beating
about the bush for, Lolly?”
K


130 NUT BUSH FARM.
She lifted her fair face a moment and I saw
she was crying.
“Lolly, Lolly!” I cried, clasping her to my
heart, “what is it, dear? Have you bad news
from home, or have you heard anything about
Lucy or the boy? Don't keep me in suspense,
there's a darling. No matter what has happened,
let me know the worst.”
She smiled through her tears, and Lolly has
the rarest smile ! It quieted my anxious heart
in a moment, even before she said—
“No, Jack—it is nothing about home, or
Lucy, or Teddy, but—but—but—” and then she
relinquished her hold of the button-hole, and
fingered each button on the front of my coat
carefully and lingeringly. “Did you ever hear
–Jack—anybody say anything about this
place?”
I knew in a moment what she meant; I knew
the cursed tattle had reached her ears, but I only
asked—
“What sort of thing, Lolly?”
She did not answer me; instead she put an
other question.
“Is that the reason you have not brought
Lucy down?”
I felt vexed—but I had so much confidence in
her good sense, I could not avoid answering
without a moment's delay.


NUT BUSH FARM. I31
“Well, yes; I do not want her to come till
this foolish report has completely died away.”
“Are you quite sure it is a foolish report?”
she enquired.
“Why, of course; it could not be anything
else.”
She did not speak immediately, then all at
OnCe—
“Jack,” she said, “I must tell you something.
Lock the door that we may not be interrupted.”
“No,” I answered; “come into the barley
field. Don't you remember Mr. Fennimore
Cooper advised, if you want to talk secrets,
choose the middle of a plain.”
I tried to put a good face on the matter, but
the sight of Lolly's tears, the sound of Lolly's
doleful voice, darkened my very heart. What
had she to tell me which required locked doors
or the greater privacy of a half-reaped barley
field. I could trust my sister—she was no fool—
and I felt perfectly satisfied that no old woman's
story had wrought the effect produced on her.
“Now, Lolly,” I said, as we paced side by side
along the top of the barley field in a solitude all
the more complete because life and plenty of it
was close at hand.
“You know what they say about the place,
Jack P”
This was interrogative, and so I answered.


I 32 NUT BUSH FARM.
~~~~~~
“Well, no, Lolly, I can't say that I do, for the
very good reason that I have always refused to
listen to the gossip. What do they say?”
“That a man haunts the Beech Walk, the
long meadow, and the wood.”
“Yes, I have heard that,” I replied.
“And they say further, the man is Mr. Hascot,
the late tenant.”
“But he is not dead,” I exclaimed, “how then
can they see his ghost?”
“I cannot tell. I know nothing but what I saw
this morning. After breakfast I went to Whit-
tleby, and as I came back I observed a man
before me on the road. Following him, I noticed
a curious thing, that none of the people he met
made way for him or he for them. He walked
straight on, without any regard to the persons on
the side path, and yet no one seemed to come
into collision with him. When I reached the
field path I saw him going on still at the same
pace. He did not look to right or left, and did
not seem to walk—the motion was gliding—”
“Yes, dear.”
“He went on, and so did I, till we reached
the hollow where the nut-bushes grow, then he
disappeared from sight. I looked down among
the trees, thinking I should be able to catch a
glimpse of his figure through the underwood,
but no, I could see no signs of him, neither could


NUT BUSH FARM. I33
I hear any. Everything was as still as death;
it seemed to me that my ear had a spell of silence
laid upon it.”
“And then,” I asked hoarsely, as she paused.
“Why, Jack, I walked on and crossed the
little foot bridge and was just turning into the
Beech Walk when the same man bustled suddenly
across my path, so close to me if I had put out
my hands I could have touched him. I drew
back, frightened for a minute, then, as he had
not seemed to see me, I turned and looked at him
as he sped along down the little winding path to
the wood. I thought he must be some silly
creature, some harmless sort of idiot, to be run-
ning here and there without any apparent object.
All at once, as he neared the wood, he stopped,
and, half wheeling round, beckoned to me to
follow him.” -
“You did not, Lolly?”
“No, I was afraid. I walked a few steps
quietly till I got among the beech trees and so
screened from sight, and then I began to run.
I could not run fast, for my knees trembled
under me; but still I did run as far nearly as
that seat round the ‘Priest's Tree. I had not
got quite up to the seat when I saw a man rise
from it and stand upright as if waiting for me.
It was the same person, Jack! I recognised him,
instantly, though I had not seen his face clearly


134 NUT BUSH FARM.
before. He stood quiet for a moment, and then
with the same gliding motion, silently disap-
peared.”
“Some one must be playing a very nice game
about Nut Bush Farm,” I exclaimed.
“Perhaps so, dear,” she said, doubtfully.
“Why, Lolly, you don't believe it was a
ghost you met in the broad daylight?” I cried,
incredulously.
“I don't think it was a living man, Jack,” she
answered.
“Living or dead he dare not bring himself
into close quarters with me,” was my somewhat
braggart remark. “Why, Lolly, I have walked
the ground day after day, and night after night
in the hope of seeing your friend, and not a sign
of an intruder, in the flesh or out of it, could I
find. Put the matter away, child, and don't
ramble in that direction again. If I can
ascertain the name of the person who is trying
to frighten the household and disgust me with
Nut Bush Farm he shall go to jail if the magis-
trates are of my way of thinking. Now, as you
have told me this terrible story, and we have
reduced your great mountain to a molehill, I
will walk back with you to the house.”
She did not make any reply: we talked over
indifferent matters as we paced along. I went
with her into the pleasant sunshiny drawing-


NUT BUSH FARM. 135
room and looked her out a book and made her
promise to read something amusing; then I was
going, when she put up her lips for me to kiss
her, and said—
“Jack, you won't run any risks?”
“Risks! pooh, you silly little woman,” I
answered; and so left my sister and repaired to
the barley field once more.
When it was time for the men to leave off
work I noticed that one after another began to
take a path leading immediately to the main
road, which was a very circuitous route to the
hamlet, where most of them had either cottages
or lodgings.
I noticed this for some time, and then asked a
brawny young fellow,
“Why don't you go home through the Beech
Walk? It is not above half the distance.”
He smiled and made some almost unintel-
ligible answer.
“Why are you all afraid of taking the
shortest way,” l remarked, “seeing there are
enough of you to put half-a-dozen ghosts to
the rout?”
“Likely, sir,” was the answer; “but the old
master was a hard man living, and there is not
many would care to meet him dead.”
“What old master?” I enquired.
“Mr. Hascot: it's him as walks. I saw him


136 NUT BUSH FARM.
as plain as I see you now, sir, one moonlight
night, just this side of the wood, and so did Nat
Tyler and James Monsey, and James Monsey's
father—wise Ben.”
“But Mr. Hascot is not dead; how can he
‘walk, as you call it?” was my natural
exclamation.
“If he is living then, sir, where is he?”
asked the man. “There is nobody can tell that,
and there is a many, especially just lately, think
he must have been made away with. He had a
cruel lot of money about him—where is all that
money gone to?”
The fellow had waxed quite earnest in his
interrogations, and really for the first time the
singularity of Mr. Hascot's disappearance
seemed to strike me.
I said, after an instant's pause, “The money
is wherever he is. He went off with some girl,
did he not?”
“It suited the old people to say so,” he
answered; “but there is many a one thinks
they know more about the matter than is good
for them. I can't help hearing, and one of the
neighbours did say Mrs. Ockfield was seen in
church last Sunday with a new dress on and a
shawl any lady might have worn.”
“And who is Mrs. Ockfield?” I enquired.
“Why, Sally Powner's grandmother. The


NUT BUSH F.A.R.M. I37
old people treated the girl shameful while she
was with them, and now they want to make her
out no better than she should be.”
And with a wrathful look the young man,
who I subsequently discovered had long
been fond of Sally, took up his coat and his tin
bottle and his sickle, and with a brief “I think
I'll be going, sir; good night,” departed.
It was easy to return to the house, but I
found it impossible to shake the effect pro-
duced by this dialogue off my mind.
For the first time I began seriously to consider
the manner of Mr. Hascot's disappearance, and
more seriously still commenced trying to piece
together the various hints I had received as to
his character.
A hard man—a hard master, all I ever heard
speak considered him, but just, and in the main
not unkind. He had sent coals to one widow,
and kept a poor old labourer off the parish, and
then in a minute, for the sake of a girl's face,
left his own wife and children to the mercy of
the nearest Union.
As I paced along it seemed to me monstrous,
and yet how did it happen that till a few minutes
previously I had never heard even a suspicion of
foul play?
Was it not more natural to conclude the man
mut have been made away with, than that, in


138 NUT BUSH FARM.
one brief day, he should have changed his nature
and the whole current of his former life?
Upon the other hand, people must have had
some strong reason for imagining he was gone
off with Miss Powner. The notion of a man
disappearing in this way—vanishing as if the
earth had opened to receive him and closed
again—for the sake of any girl, however at-
tractive, was too unnatural an idea for any one
to have evolved out of his internal con-
sciousness. There must have been some sub-
stratum of fact, and then upon the other hand,
there seemed to me more than a substratum
of possibility in the theory started of his having
been murdered.
Supposing he had been murdered, I went
on to argue, what then? Did I imagine he
“walked?” did I believe he could not rest
wherever he was laid P
Pooh! nonsense. It might be that the mur-
derer haunted the place of his crime—that he
hovered about to see if his guilt were still un-
detected, but as to anything in the shape of a
ghost tenanting the Beech Walk, long meadow,
and wood, I did not believe it—I could not,
and I added, “if I saw it with my own eyes, I
would not.”
Having arrived at which decided and sensible
conclusion, I went in to supper.


AV UT BUSH FARM. I39
Usually a sound sleeper, I found it impossible
that night when I lay down to close my eyes. I
tossed and turned, threw off the bedclothes
under the impression I was too hot and drew
them tight up round me the next instant, feeling
cold. I tried to think of my crops, of my land,
of my wife, of my boy, of my future—all in vain.
A dark shadow, a wall-like night stood between
me and all the ordinary interests of my life—I
could not get the notion of Mr. Hascot's strange
disappearance out of my mind. I wondered if
there was anything about the place which made
it in the slightest degree probable I should ever
learn to forget the wife who loved, the boy who
was dependent on me. Should I ever begin to
think I might have done better as regards my
choice of a wife, that it would be nicer to have
healthy merry children than my affectionate
delicate lad?
When I got to this point, I could stand it no
longer. I felt as though some mocking spirit
were taking possession of me, which eventually
would destroy all my peace of mind, if I did not
cast it out promptly and effectually.
I would not lie there supine to let any demon
torment me; and, accordingly, springing to the
floor, I dressed in hot haste, and flinging wide
the window, looked out over a landscape bathed
in the clear light of a most lovely moon.


140 NUT BUSH FARM.
“How beautiful!” I thought. “I have never
yet seen the farm by night, I'll just go and take
a stroll round it and then turn in again—after a
short walk I shall likely be able to sleep.”
So saying, I slipped downstairs, closed the hall
door softly after me, and went out into the moon-
light.


INUT BUSH FARM. I41
C II A PTER III.
S I stood upon the lawn, looking around
with a keen and subtle pleasure, I felt,
almost for the first time in my life, the full charm
and beauty of night. Every object was as
clearly revealed as though the time had been
noon instead of an hour past midnight, but there
lay a mystic spell on tree and field and stream
the garish day could never equal. It was a fairy
light and a fairy scene, and it would scarcely
have astonished me to see fantastic elves issue
from the fox-glove's flowers or dart from
the shelter of concealing leaves and dance a
measure on the emerald sward.
For a minute I felt—as I fancy many and
many a common-place man must have done
when first wedded to some miracle of grace and
beauty—a sense of amazement and unreality
All this loveliness was mine—the moonlit
lawn—the stream murmuring through the fir
plantation, singing soft melodies as it pursued
its glittering way—the trees with a silvery
gleam tinting their foliage—the roses giving
out their sweetest, tenderest, perfumes—the
wonderful silence around—the fresh, pure air-


I42 NUT BUSH FARM,
the soft night wind—the prosperity with which
God had blessed me. My heart grew full, as
I turned and gazed first on this side and then
on that, and I felt vexed and angry to re-
member I had ever suffered myself to listen to
idle stories and to be made uncomfortable by
reason of village gossip.
On such a night it really seemed a shame
to go to bed, and, accordingly, though the
restlessness which first induced me to rise had
vanished, and in doing so left the most
soothing calm behind, I wandered on away
from the house, now beside the stream, and
again across a meadow, where faint odours from
the lately-carried hay still lingered.
Still the same unreal light over field and
copse—still the same witching glamour—still
the same secret feeling. I was seeing something
and experiencing some sensation I might never
again recall on this side of the grave!
A most lovely night—one most certainly
not for drawn curtains and closed eyelids—-
one rather for lovers téte-a-tête or a dreamy
reverie—for two young hearts to reveal their
secrets to each other or one soul to commune
alone with God.
Still rambling, I found myself at last beside
a stile, opening upon a path, which, winding
upwards, led past the hollow where the nut


NUT BUSH FARM. I43
trees grew, and then joined the footway lead-
ing through the Long field to Whittleby.
The Long field was the last in that direction
belonging to Nut Bush Farm. It joined upon
a portion of the land surrounding Chalmont,
and the field path continued consequently to
pass through Miss Gostock's property till the
main road was reached. It cut off a long
distance, and had been used generally by
the inhabitants of the villages and hamlets
dotted about my place until the rumour being
circulated that something might be “seen”
or “met” deterred people from venturing by
a route concerning which such evil things
were whispered. I had walked it constantly,
both on account of the time it saved and
also in order to set a good example to my
labourers and my neighbours, but I might as
well have saved my pains.
I was regarded merely as foolhardy, and
I knew people generally supposed I should
one day have cause to repent my temerity.
As I cleared the stile and began winding
my upward way to the higher ground beyond,
the thought did strike me what a likely place
for a murder Nut Bush Hollow looked. It
was a deep excavation, out of which, as no
one supposed it to be natural, hundreds and
thousands of loads of earth must at Some


I44 NUT BUSH FARM.
----------
time or other have been carted. From top
to bottom it was clothed with nut trees—they
grew on every side, and in thick almost im-
penetrable masses. For years and years they
seemed to have had n) care bestowed on
them, the Hollow forming in this respect a
remarkable contrast to the rest of Mr. Hascot's
careful farming, and, as a fir plantation ran
along the base of the Hollow, while the
moon's light fell clear and full on some of
the bushes, the others lay in densest shadow.
The road that once led down into the pit
was now completely overgrown with nut bushes
which grew luxuriantly to the very edge of
the Beech Walk, and threatened ere long to
push their way between the trunks of the
great trees, which were the beauty and the
pride of my lovely farm.
At one time, so far as I could understand,
the nut bushes had the whole place almost to
themselves, and old inhabitants told me that
formerly, in the days when their parents
were boys and girls, the nuts used to pay
the whole of the rent. As years passed, how-
ever, whether from want of care or some
natural cause, they gradually ceased to bear,
and had to be cut down and cleared off the
ground—those, in the dell, however, being
suffered to remain, the hollow being useless


NUT BUSH FAR.M. 145
for husbandry, and the bushes which flourished
there producing a crop of nuts sufficient
for the farmer's family.
All this recurred to my mind as I stood for
a moment and looked down into the depths
of rustling green below me. I thought of
the boys who must have gone nutting there,
of all the nests birds had built in the branches
so closely interlaced, of the summers' suns
which had shone full and strong upon that
mass of foliage, of the winters' snows
which had lain heavy on twig and stem and
happed the strong roots in a warm covering
of purest white.
And then the former idea again asserted
itself—what a splendid place for a tragedy;
a sudden blow—a swift stab—even a treach-
erous push—and the deed could be done—a
man might be alive and well one minute,
and dead the next !
False friend, or secret enemy; rival or thief,
it was competent for either in such a place at
any lonely hour to send a man upon his last long
journey. Had Mr. Hascot been so served?
Down, far down, was he lying in a quiet,
dreamless sleep? At that very moment was
there any one starting from fitful slumber to
grapple with his remorse for crime committed, or
shrink with horror from the dread of detection?
L


146 NUT BUSH FARM.
“Where was my fancy leading me?” I sud-
denly asked myself. This was worse than in
my own chamber preventing the night watches.
Since I had been standing there my heart felt
heavier than when tossing from side to side in
bed, and wooing unsuccessfully the slumber
which refused to come for my asking.
What folly! what nonsense! and into what an
insane course of speculation had I not em-
barked. I would leave the eerie place and get
once again into the full light of the moon's
bright beams.
Hush ! hark! what was that? deep down
amongst the underwood—a rustle, a rush, and
a scurry—then silence—then a stealthy move-
ment amongst the bushes—then whilst I was
peering down into the abyss lined with waving
green below, SOMETHING passed by me swiftly,
something which brought with it a cold chill as
though the hand of one dead had been laid sud-
denly on my heart.
Instantly I turned and looked around. There
was not a living thing in sight—neither on the
path, nor on the sward, nor on the hill side, nor
skirting the horizon as I turned my eyes
upward.
For a moment I stood still in order to steady
my nerves, then re-assuring myself with the
thought it must have been an animal of some


NUT BUSH FARM. 147
kind, I completed the remainder of the ascent
without further delay.
“The ghost, I suspect,” I said to myself as I
reached the Long Field and the path leading
back to the farm, “will resolve itself into a hare or
pheasant—is not the whirr of a cock pheasant
rising, for instance, enough, when coming un-
expectedly, to frighten any nervous person out
of his wits? and might not a hare, or a cat, or,
better still, a stoat—yes, a stoat, with its glid-
ing, almost noiseless, movements—mimic the
footfall of a suppositious ghost?”
By this time I had gained the summit of the
incline, and slightly out of breath with breast-
ing the ascent, stood for a moment contempla-
ting the exquisite panorama stretched out
beneath me. I linger on that moment
because it was the last time I ever saw beauty
in the moonlight. Now I cannot endure the
silvery gleam of the queen of night—weird,
mournful, fantastic if you like, but to be desired
-11O.
Whenever possible I draw the blinds and
close the shutters, yet withal on moonlight
nights I cannot sleep, the horror of darkness is
to my mind nothing in comparison to the terror
of a full moon. But I drivel; let me hasten on.
From the crest of the hill I could see lying
below a valley of dream-like beauty—woods in


143 NUT BUSH FARM.
the foreground—a champagne country spread-
ing away into the indefinite distance—a stream
winding in and out, dancing and glittering under
the moon's beams—a line of hills dimly seen
against the horizon, and already a streak of
light appearing above them the first faint
harbinger of dawn.
“It is morning, then, already,” I said, and
with the words turned my face homewards. As
I did so I saw before me on the path—clearly—
the figure of a man.
He was walking rapidly and I hurried my
pace in order to overtake him. Now to this
part of my story I desire to draw particular
attention. Let me hurry as I might I never
seemed able to get a foot nearer to him.
At intervals he paused as if on purpose to
assist my desire, but the moment I seemed gain-
ing upon him the distance between us suddenly
increased. I could not tell how he did it, the
fact only remained—it was like pursuing some
phantom in a dream.
All at once when he reached the bridge he
stood quite still. He did not move hand or
limb as I drew near—the way was so narrow
I knew I should have to touch him in passing,
nevertheless I pressed forward. My foot was
on the bridge—I was close to him—I felt my
breath coming thick and fast—I clasped a stick


NUT BUSH FARM. 149
I had picked up in the plantation firmly in my
hand—I stopped intending to speak—I opened
my mouth intending to do so—and then—then
—without any movement on his part—I was
alone !
Yes, as totally alone as though he had never
stood on the bridge—never preceded me along
the field-path—never loitered upon my footsteps
—never paused for my coming.
I was appalled.
“Lord, what is this?” I thought ; “am I
going mad?” I felt as if I were. On my
honour, I know I was as nearly insane at that
molment as a man ever can be who is still in
the possession of his senses.
Beyond lay the farm of which in my folly I had
felt so proud to be the owner, where I once
meant to be so happy and win health for my wife
and strength for my boy. I saw the Beech
Walk I had gloried in—the ricks of hay it
seemed so good to get thatched geometrically as
only one man in the neighbourhood was said to
be able to lay the straw.
What was farm, or riches, or beech trees, or
anything, to me now? over the place there seemed
a curse—better the meanest cottage than a
palace with such accessories.
If I had been incredulous before, I was not so
now—I could not distrust the evidence of my
.


150 NUT BUSH FARM.
own eyes—and yet as I walked along, I tried
after a minute or two, to persuade myself
imagination had been playing some juggler's
trick with me. The moon, I argued, always
lent herself readily to a game of hide-and-seek.
She is always open to join in fantastic gambols
with shadows—with thorn bushes—with a wav-
ing branch—aye even with a clump of gorse. I
must have been mistaken—I had been thinking
weird thoughts as I stood by that dismal dell
—I had seen no man walking—beheld no figure
disappear ! •
Just as I arrived at this conclusion I beheld
some one coming towards me down the Beech
Walk. It was a man walking leisurely with a
firm, free step. The sight did me good. Here
was something tangible—something to question.
I stood still, in the middle of the path—the
Beech Walk being rather a grassy glade with a
narrow footway dividing it, than anything usually
understood by the term walk—so that I might
speak to the intruder when he drew near, and
ask him what he meant by trespassing on my
property, more especially at such an hour.
There were no public rights on my land except
as regarded the path across the Long Field and
through the wood. No one had any right or
business to be in the Beech Walk, by day or
night, save those employed about the Farm, and


INUT BUSH FARM. I51
this person was a gentleman; even in the dis-
tance I could distinguish that. As he came
closer I saw he was dressed in a loose Palmerston
suit, that he wore a low-crowned hat, and that
he carried a light cane. The moonbeams danc-
ing down amongst the branches and between
the leaves fell full upon his face, and catching
sight of a ring he had on his right hand, made
it glitter with as many different colours as a
prism.
A middle-aged man, so far as I could judge,
with a set, determined expression of countenance,
dark hair, no beard or whiskers, only a small
moustache. A total stranger to me. I had
never seen him nor any one like him in the
neighbourhood. Who could he be, and what in
the wide world was he doing on my premises at
that unearthly hour of the morning?
He came straight on, never moving to right or
left—taking no more notice of me than if he
had been blind. His easy indifference, his con-
temptuous coolness, angered me, and planting
myself a little more in his way, I began–
“Are you aware, sir 35
I got no further. Without swerving in the
slightest degree from the path, he passed me!
1 felt something like a cold mist touch me for an
instant, and the next, I saw him pursuing his
steady walk down the centre of the glade. I


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


NUT BUSH FARM. I53
CHAPTER IV.
T was not much past eight o'clock when I
knocked at Miss Gostock's hall door, and
asked if I could see that lady.
After that terrible night vision I had made up
my mind. Behind Mr. Hascot's disappearance I
felt sure there lurked some terrible tragedy
—living, no man should have implored my help
with such passionate earnestness without avail,
and if indeed one had appeared to me from the
dead I would right him if I could.
But never for a moment did I then think of
giving up the farm. The resolve I had
come to seemed to have braced up my courage
—let what might come or go, let crops remain
unreaped and men neglect their labour, let
monetary loss and weary anxious days be in
store if they would, I meant to go on to
the end.
The first step on my road clearly led in the
direction of Miss Gostock's house. She alone
could give me all the information I required—


I54 NUT BUSH FARM.
to her alone could I speak freely and fully about
what I had seen.
I was instantly admitted and found the lady,
as I had expected, at breakfast. It was her
habit, I knew, to partake of that meal while the
labourers she employed were similarly engaged.
She was attired in an easy négligé of a white
skirt and a linen coat which had formerly
belonged to her brother. She was not taking
tea or coffee like any other woman—but
was engaged upon about a pound of smoking
steak which she ate covered with mustard and
washed down with copious draughts of home-
brewed beer.
She received me cordially and invited me to
join in the banquet—a request I ungallantly
declined, eliciting in return the remark I should
never be good for much till I ceased living on
“slops” and took to “good old English” fare.
After these preliminaries I drew my chair
near the table and said,
“I want you to give me some information,
Miss Gostock, about my predecessor.”
“What sort of information,” she asked, with
a species of frost at once coming over her
Imanner.
“Can you tell me anything of his personal
appearance?”
“Why do you ask?”


NUT BUSH FARM. I55
I did not immediately answer, and seeing my
hesitation she went on.
“Because if you mean to tell me you or
any one else have seen him about your place I
would not believe it if you swore it—there !”
“I do not ask you to believe it, Miss
Gostock,” I said.
“And I give you fair warning, it is of no use
coming here and asking me to relieve you
of your bargain, because I won’t do it. I like
you well enough—better than I ever liked a
tenant; but I don't intend to be a shilling
out of pocket by you.”
“I hope you never may be,” I answered
meekly.
“I’ll take very good care I never am,” she
retorted; “and so don't come here talking
about Mr. Hascot. He served me a dirty turn,
and I would not put it one bit past him to try
and get the place a bad name.”
“Will you tell me what sort of looking man
he was?” I asked determinedly.
“No, I won’t,” she snapped, and while she
spoke she rose, drained the last drop out of a
pewter measure, and after tossing on the straw
hat with a defiant gesture, thumped its crown
well down on her head. I took the hint, and
rising, said I must endeavour to ascertain the
particulars I wanted elsewhere.


156 NUT BUSH FAIRM
“You won't ascertain them from me,”
retorted Miss Gostock, and so we parted as we
had never done before—on bad terms.
Considerably perplexed I walked out of the
house. A rebuff of this sort was certainly the
last thing I could have expected, and as I paced
along I puzzled myself by trying to account for
Miss Gostock's extraordinary conduct, and
anxiously considering what I was to do under
present circumstances. All at once the recol-
lection of mine host of the “Bunch of Hops”
flashed across my mind. He must have seen
Mr. Hascot often, and I could address a few
casual questions to him without exciting his
curiosity.
No sooner thought than done. Turning my
face towards Whittleby, I stepped briskly on.
“Did I ever see Mr. Hascot,” repeated the
landlord—when after some general conversation
about politics, the weather, the crops, and many
other subjects, I adroitly turned it upon the
late tenant of Nut Bush Farm—“often, sir. I
never had much communication with him,
for he was one of your stand-aloof, keep-your-
distance, sort of gentlemen—fair dealing and
honourable—but neither free nor generous.
He has often sat where you are sitting now, sir,
and not so much as said—“it is a fine day, or,
‘I am afraid we shall have rain.'”


NUT BUSH FAIRM. 157
“You had but to see him walking down the
street to know what he was. As erect as a
grenadier, with a firm easy sort of marching
step, he looked every inch a gentleman—just in
his every-day clothes, a Palmerston suit and a
round hat, he was, as many a one said, fit to
go to court. His hands were not a bit like a
farmer's, but white and delicate as any lady's,
and the diamond ring he wore flashed like a star
when he stroked the slight bit of a moustache, that
was all the hair he had upon his face. No—not a
handsome gentleman, but fine looking, with
a presence—bless and save us all to think of his
giving up everything for the sake of that slip of
a girl.”
“She was very pretty, wasn't she?” I enquired.
“Beautiful—we all said she was too pretty to
come to any good. The old grandmother you
see had serious cause for keeping so tight a hand
over her, but it was in her, and ‘what's bred in
the bone, you know, sir.”
“And you really think they did go off
together?”
“Oh! yes, sir; nobody had ever any doubt
about that.”
On this subject his tone was so decided I felt
it was useless to continue the conversation, and
having paid him for the modest refreshment of
which I had partaken I sauntered down the


158 NUT BUSH FARM.
High Street and turned into the Bank, where I
thought of opening an account.
When I had settled all preliminaries with the
manager he saved me the trouble of beating
about the bush by breaking cover himself and
asking if anything had been heard of Mr. Hascot.
“Not that I know of,” I answered.
“Curious affair, wasn't it,” he said.
“It appears so, but I have not heard the
whole story.”
“Well, the whole story is in a nut-shell,” re-
turned the manager. “He comes over here one
day and without assigning any reason withdraws
the whole of his balance, which was very heavy
—is met on the road homeward but never
returns home—the same day the girl Powner is
also missing—what do you think of all that?”
“It is singular,” I said, “very.”
“Yes, and to leave his wife and family totally
unprovided for.”
“I cannot understand that at all.”
“Nor I—it was always known he had an ex-
treme partiality for the young person—he and
Miss Gostock quarrelled desperately on the
subject—but no one could have imagined an
attachment of that sort would have led a man
so far astray–Hascot more especially. If I
had been asked to name the last person in the
world likely to make a fool of himself for the


NUT BUSH FARM. I59
sake of a pretty face I should have named the
late tenant of Nut Bush Farm.”
“There never was a suspicion of foul play,” I
suggested.
“Oh, dear, no! It was broad daylight when
he was last seen on the Whittleby road. The
same morning it is known he and the girl were
talking earnestly together beside the little wood
on your property, and two persons answering
their description were traced to London, that is
to say, a gentleman came forward to say he
believed he had travelled up with them as far as
New Cross on the afternoon in question.”
“He was an affectionate father I have heard,”
I said.
“A most affectionate parent—a most devoted
husband. Dear, dear! it is dreadfully sad to
think how a bad woman may drag the best of
men down to destruction. It is terrible to think
of his wife and family being inmates of the
Union.”
“Yes, and it is terrible to consider not a soul
has tried to get them out of it,” I answered, a
little tartly. -
“H—m, perhaps so; but we all know we are
contributing to their support,” he returned with
an effort at jocularity, which, in my then frame
of mind, seemed singularly mal-apropos.
“There is something in that,” I replied with


16o NUT BUSH FARM.
an effort, and leaving the Bank next turned my
attention to the Poorhouse at Crayshill.
At that time many persons thought what I
did Quixotic. It is so much the way of the
world to let the innocent suffer for the guilty,
that I believe Mr. Hascot's wife might have
ended her days in Crayshill Union but for the
action I took in the matter.
Another night I felt I could not rest till I had
arranged for an humble lodging she and her
family could occupy till I was able to form some
plan for their permanent relief. I found her a
quiet, ladylike woman, totally unable to give
me the slightest clue as to where her husband
might be found. “He was just at the stile
on the Chalmont fields,” she said, “when Mr.
Waite met him; no one saw him afterwards,
unless it might be the Ockfields, but, of course,
there is no information to be got from them.
The guardians have tried every possible means
to discover his whereabouts without success.
My own impression is he and Sally Powner have
gone to America, and that some day we may
hear from him. He cannot harden his heart for
ever and forget—” Here Mrs. Hascot's sen-
tence trailed off into passionate weeping.
“It is too monstrous!” I considered; “the
man never did such a thing as desert his wife
and children. Some one knows all about the


NUT BUSII FAIRM. I61
matter,” and then in a moment I paused in
the course of my meditations.
Was that person Miss Gostock?
It was an ugly idea, and yet it haunted me.
When I remembered the woman's masculine
strength, when I recalled her furious im-
petuosity when I asked her a not very
exasperating question, as I recalled the way she
tossed off that brandy, when I considered her
love of money, her eagerness to speak ill of her
late tenant, her semi-references to some great
trouble prior to which she was more like other
women, or, perhaps, to speak more correctly,
less unlike them—doubts came crowding upon
my mind.
It was when entering her ground Mr. Hascot
was last seen. He had a large sum of money in
his possession. She was notoriously fond of
rambling about Nut Bush Farm, and what my
labouring men called “spying around,” which had
been the cause of more than one pitched battle
between herself and Mr. Hascot.
“The old master could not a-bear her,” said
one young fellow.
I hated myself for the suspicion; and yet,
do what I would, I could not shake it off. Not
for a moment did I imagine Miss Gostock had
killed her former tenant in cold blood ; but it
certainly occurred to me that the dell was deep,
M


162 NUT BUSH FARM.
and the verge treacherous, that it would be easy
to push a man over, either by accident or
design, that the nut-'5ushes grew thick, that
a body might lie amongst them till it rotted, ere
even the boys who went nutting there, season
after season, happened to find it.
Should I let the matter drop? No, I decided.
With that mute appeal haunting my memory,
I should know no rest or peace till I had
solved the mystery of Mr. Hascot's disappear-
ance, and cleared his memory from the shame-
ful stain circumstances had cast upon it.
What should I do next? I thought the mat-
ter over for a few days, and then decided to call
on Mr. Waite, who never yet had called on me.
As usual, he was not at home; but I saw his
wife, whom I found just the sort of woman
Lolly described—a fair, delicate creature, who
seemed fading into the grave.
She had not much to tell me. It was her
husband who saw Mr. Hascot at the Chalmont
stile; it was he also who had seen Mr. Hascot
and the girl Powner talking together on the
morning of their disappearance. It so happened
he had often chanced to notice them together
before. “She was a very, very pretty girl,”
Mrs. Waite added, “and I always thought a
modest. She had a very sweet way of speaking
—quite above her station—inherited, no doubt,


JNUT BUSH FAIRM. 163
for her father was a gentleman. Poor little
Sally!”
The words were not much but the manner
touched me sensibly. I felt drawn to Mrs.
Waite from that moment, and told her more of
what I had beheld and what I suspected than
I had mentioned to anyone else.
As to my doubts concerning Miss Gostock, I
was of course silent, but I said quite plainly I did
not believe Mr. Hascot had gone off with any girl
or woman either, that I thought he had come to an
unfair end, and that I was of opinion the stories
circulated, concerning a portion of Nut Bush
Farm being haunted, had some foundation in
fact.
“Do you believe in ghosts then?” she asked,
with a curious smile.
“I believe in the evidence of my senses,” I
answered, “and I declare to you, Mrs. Waite,
that one night not long since, I saw as plainly as
I see you, what I can only conclude to have been
the semblance of Mr. Hascot.”
She did not make any reply, she only turned
very pale, and blaming myself for having
alarmed one in her feeble state of health, I
hastened to apologise and take my leave.
As we shook hands, she retained mine for a
moment, and said, “When you hear anything
more, if you should that is, you will tell us will


164 NUT DUSII FAI.M.
you not. Naturally we feel interested in the
matter, he was such a near neighbour, and—we
knew him.”
I assured her I would not fail to do so, and left
the room.
Before I reached the front door I found I had
forgotten one of my gloves, and immediately
retraced my steps
The drawing-room door was ajar, and some-
what unceremoniously, perhaps, I pushed it
open and entered.
To my horror and surprise, Mrs. Waite, whom
I had left apparently in her ordinary state of
languid health, lay full length on the sofa,
sobbing as if her heart would break. What I
said so indiscreetly had brought on an attack
of violent hysterics—a malady, with the signs
and tokens of which I was not altogether un-
acquainted.
Silently I stole out of the room without my
glove, and left the house, closing the front door
noiselessly behind me.
A couple of days elapsed, and then I decided
to pay a visit to Mrs. Ockfield. If she liked
to throw any light on the matter, I felt
satisfied she could. It was, to say the least
of it, most improbable her grand-daughter,
whether she had been murdered or gone
away with Mr. Hascot, should disappear and


NUT BUSH FARM. 165
not leave a clue by which her relatives could
trace her.
The Ockfields were not liked, I found, and
I flattered myself if they had any hand
in Mr. Hascot's sudden disappearance, I should
soon hit on some weak spot in her story.
I found the old woman, who was sixty-
seven, and who looked two hundred, stand-
ing over her washing tub.
“Can I tell you where my grand-daughter
is,” she repeated, drawing her hands out of
the suds and wiping them on her apron.
“Surely, sir, and very glad I am to be able
to tell everybody, gentle and simple, where
to find our Sally. She is in a good service
down in Cheslie. Mr. Hascot got her the
place, but we knew nothing about it till yes
terday; she left us in a bit of a pet, and
said she wouldn't have written me only some
thing scemed to tell her she must. Ah! she'll
have a sore heart when she gets my letter
and hears how it has been said that the
master and she went off together. She thought
a deal of the master, did Sally; he was
always kind and stood between her and her
grandfather.”
“Then do you mean to say,” I asked, “that
she knows nothing of Mr. Hascot's disappear-
ance?”


166 MUT BUSH F.A.R.M.
“Nothing, sir, thank God for all His mercies;
the whole of the time since the day she left
here she has been in service with a friend
of his. You can read her letter if you like.”
Though I confess old Mrs. Ockfield neither
charmed nor inspired me with confidence, I an
swered that I should like to see the letter very
much indeed.
When I took it in my hand I am bound to say
I thought it had been written with a purpose,
and intended less for a private than for the public
eye, but as I read I fancied there was a ring
of truth about the epistle, more especially
as the writer made passing reference to a very
bitter quarrel which had preceded her departure
from the grand-paternal roof.
“It is very strange,” I said, as I returned
the letter, “it is a most singular coincidence
that your grand-daughter and Mr. Hascot
should have left Whittleby on the same day,
and yet that she should know nothing of his
whereabouts, as judging from her letter seems
to be the case.”
“Are you quite sure Mr. Hascot ever did
leave Whittleby, sir?” asked the old woman
with a vindictive look in her still bright old
eyes. “There are those as think he never
went very far from home, and that the whole
truth will come out some day.”


NUT BUSH F.A.R.M. 167
“What do you mean?” I exclaimed,
surprised.
“Least said soonest mended,” she answered,
shortly; “only I hopes if ever we do know
the rights of it, people as do hold their heads
high enough, and have had plenty to say
about our girl and us too for that matter,
will find things not so pleasant as they find
them at present. The master had a heap of
money about him, and we know that often
those as has, are those as wants more !”
“I cannot imagine what you are driving
at,” I said, for l feared every moment she would
mention Miss Gostock, and bring her name into
the discussion. “If you think Mr. Hascot met
with any foul play you ought to go to the police
about the matter.” -
“Maybe I will some time,” she answered,
“but just now I have my washing to do.”
“This will buy you some tea to have after-
wards,” I said, laying down half-a-crown, and
feeling angry with myself for this momentary
irritation. After all the woman had as much
right to her suspicions as I to mine.
Thinking over Miss Powner's letter I came to
the conclusion it might be well to see the young
lady for myself. If I went to the address she
dated from I could ascertain at all events
whether her statement regarding her employ-


168 NUT BUSII FAIR.M.
ment was correct. Yes, I would take train and
travel into Cheshire; I had commenced the in
vestigation and I would follow it to the end.
I travelled so much faster than Mrs. Ockfield's
letter—which indeed that worthy woman had
not then posted—that when I arrived at my
journey's end I found the fair Sarah in total
ignorance of Mr. Hascot's disappearance and the
surmises to which her own absence had given
r1Se.
Appearances might be against the girl's truth
and honesty, yet I felt she was dealing fairly
with me.
“A better gentleman, sir,” she said, “than
Mr. Hascot never drew breath. And so they
set it about he had gone off with me—they little
know—they little know ! Why, sir, he thought
of me and was careful for me as he might for a
daughter. The first time I ever saw him grand-
father was beating me, and he interfered to save
me. He knew they treated me badly, and it
was after a dreadful quarrel I had at home he
advised me to go away. He gave me a letter
to the lady I am now with, and a ten-pound
note to pay my travelling and keep something
in my pocket. “You’ll be better away from
the farm, little girl, he said the morning I left;
‘people are beginning to talk, and we can't
shut their mouths if you come running to me
------------


NUT BUSH FARM. 169
every time your grandmother speaks sharply to
you.”
“But why did you not write sooner to your
relatives?” I asked.
“Because I was angry with my grandmother,
sir, and I thought I would give her a fright. 1
did not bring any clothes or anything and I
hoped—it was a wicked thing I know, sir—but
I hoped she would believe I had made away
with myself. Just lately, however, I began to
consider that if she and grandfather had not
treated me well I was treating them worse,
so I made up a parcel of some things my
mistress gave me and sent it to them with a
letter. I am glad it reached them safely.”
“What time was it when you saw Mr.
Hascot last?” I enquired.
“About two o'clock, sir. I know that,
because he was in a hurry. He had got some
news about the bank at Whittleby not being
quite safe, and he said he had too much money
there to run any risk of loss. “Be a good girl,”
were the last words he said, and he walked off
sharp and quick by the field path to Whittleby.
I stood near the bridge crying for a while. Oh,
sir! do you think anything ill can have
happened to him?”
For answer, I only said the whole thing
seemed most mysterious


17o NUT DUSH FARM.
“He’d never have left his wife and children,
sir,” she went on ; “never. He must have been
made away with.”
“Had he any enemies, do you think?” I
asked.
“No, sir; not to say enemies. He was called
hard because he would have a day's work for a
day's wage, but no one that ever I heard of had
a grudge against him. Except Miss Gostock and
Mr. Waite, he agreed well with all the people
about. He did not like Miss Gostock, and Mr.
Waite was always borrowing money from him.
Now Mr. Hascot did not mind giving, but he
could not bear lending.”
I returned to Nut Bush Farm perfectly
satisfied that Mr. Hascot had been as the girl
expressed the matter—“made away with.” On
the threshold of my house I was met with a
catalogue of disasters. The female servants
had gone in a body; the male professed a
dislike to be in the stable-yard in the twilight.
Rumour had decided that Nut Bush Farm was
an unlucky place even to pass. The cattle were
out of condition because the men would not go
down the Beech Walk, or turn a single sheep
into the Long Field. Reapers wanted higher
wages. The labourers were looking out for
other service.
“Poor fellow! this is a nice state of things


MUT BUSII FARM. 171
for you to come home to,” said Lolly, compas-
sionately. “Even the poachers won't venture
into the wood, and the boys don’t go
nutting.”
“I will clear away the nut trees, and cut
down the wood,” I declared, savagely.
“I don't know who you are going to get to
cut them,” answered Lolly, “unless you bring
men down from London.”
As for Miss Gostock, she only laughed at my
dilemma, and said, “You’re a pretty fellow to
be frightened by a ghost. If he was seen at
Chalmont I’d ghost him.”
While I was in a state of the most cruel
perplexity, I bethought me of my promise to
Mrs. Waite, and walked over one day to tell her
the result of my enquiries.
“I found her at home, and Mr. Waite, for a
wonder, in the drawing-room. He was not a
bad-looking fellow, and welcomed my visit with
a heartiness which ill accorded with the dis-
courtesy he had shown in never calling upon
Ine.
Very succinctly I told what I had done, and
where I had been. I mentioned the terms in
which Sally Powner spoke of her benefactor.
We discussed the whole matter fully—the pros
and cons of any one knowing Mr. Hascot had
such a sum of money on his person, and the


172 INUT BUSH FARM.
possibility of his having been murdered. I
mentioned what I had done about Mrs. Hascot,
and begged Mr. Waite to afford me his help and
co-operation in raising such a sum of money as
might start the poor lady in some business.
“I’ll do all that lies in my power,” he said.
heartily, shaking hands at the same time, for I
had risen to go. * -
“And for my part,” I remarked, “it seems to
me there are only two things more I can do to
elucidate the mystery, and those are—root every
nut-tree out of the dell and set the axe to work
in the wood.”
There was a second's silence. Then Mrs.
Waite dropped to the floor as if she had
been shot.
As he stooped over her, he and I exchanged
glances, and then I knew. Mr. Hascot had been
murdered, and Mr. Waite was the murderer !
* * ** # *
That night I was smoking and Lolly at needle-
work. The parlour windows were wide open,
for it was warm, and not a breath of air seemed
stirring.
There was a stillness on everything which
betokened a coming thunderstorm; and we
both were silent, for my mind was busy and
Lolly's heart anxious. She did not see, as she


JNUT DUSH FARM. 173
said, how I was to get on at all, and for my
part I could not tell what I ought to do.
All at once something whizzed through the
window furthest from where we sat, and fell
noisily to the floor. -
“What is that?” Lolly cried, springing to
her feet. “Oh, Jack what is it?”
Surprised and shaken, myself, I closed the
windows and drew down the blinds before I
examined the cause of our alarm. It proved to
be an oblong package weighted with a stone.
Unfastening it cautiously, for I did not know
whether it might not contain some explosive, I
came at length to a pocket book—opening the
pocket book I found it stuffed full of bank
In OteS.
“What are they? Where can they have come
from ?” exclaimed Lolly.
“They are the notes Mr. Hascot drew from
Whittleby bank the day he disappeared,” I
answered with a sort of inspiration, but I took
no notice of Lolly's last questic n,
For good or for evil that was a secret which
lay between myself and the Waites, and which
I have never revealed till now.
If the vessel in which they sailed for New
Zealand had not gone to the bottom I should
have kept the secret still.
When they were out of the country and the


174 NUT BUSH FARM.
autumn well advanced, I had the wood
thoroughly examined, and there in a gully,
covered with a mass of leaves and twigs and
dead branches, we found Mr. Hascot's body.
His watch was in his waistcoat pocket—his
ring on his finger; save for these possessions
no one could have identified him.
His wife married again about a year after-
wards and my brother took Nut Bush Farm off
my hands. He says the place never was
haunted—that I never saw Mr. Hascot except
in my own imagination—that the whole thing
originated in a poor state of health and a too
credulous disposition |
I leave the reader to judge between us.


THE OLD HOUSE IN WAUXIIALL WALK.
•-><$ 2-0. #3:--
CHAPTER I.
66 H OUSELESS—homeless—hopeless!”
Many a one who had before him trodden
that same street must have uttered the same
words—the weary, the desolate, the hungry,
the forsaken, the waifs and strays of struggling
humanity that are always coming and going,
cold, starving and miserable, over the pavements
of Lambeth Parish; but it is open to question
whether they were ever previously spoken with
a more thorough conviction of their truth, or
with a feeling of keener self-pity, than by the
young man who hurried along Vauxhall Walk
one rainy winter's night, with no overcoat on
his shoulders and no hat on his head. -
A strange sentence for one-and-twenty to give
expression to—and it was stranger still to come
from the lips of a person who looked like, and
who was a gentleman. He did not appear
either to have sunk very far down in the good


176 T.E CLD RIOUSE IN ITA U-VIIALL J, ... LX.
graces of Fortune. There was no sign or token
which would have induced a passer-by to
imagine he had been worsted after a long fight
with calamity. His boots were not worn down
at the heel or broken at the toes, as many many
boots were, which dragged and shuffled and
scraped along the pavement. His clothes were
good and fashionably cut, and innocent of the
rents and patches and tatters that slunk
wretchedly by, crouched in doorways, and held
out a hand mutely appealing for charity. His
face was not pinched with famine or lined with
wicked wrinkles, or brutalised by drink and
debauchery, and yet he said and thought he was
hopeless, and almost in his young despair spoke
the words aloud.
It was a bad night to be about with such a
feeling in one's heart. The rain was cold,
pitiless and increasing. A damp, keen wind
blew down the cross streets leading from the
river. The fumes of the gas works seemed to
fall with the rain. The roadway was muddy;
the pavement greasy; the lamps burned dimly;
and that dreary district of London looked its
very gloomiest and worst.
Certainly not an evening to be abroad without
a home to go to, or a sixpence in one's pocket,
yet this was the position of the young gentle-
man who, without a hat, strode along Vauxhall


THE OLD HOUSE IN VAULATIALL IVALK. 177
Walk, the rain beating on his unprotected
head.
Upon the houses, so large and good—once
inhabited by well-to-do citizens, now let out for
the most part in floors to weekly tenants—he
looked enviously. He would have given much
to have had a room, or even part of one. He
had been walking for a long time, ever since
dark in fact, and dark falls soon in December.
IIe was tired and cold and hungry, and he saw
no prospect save of pacing the streets all night.
As he passed one of the lamps, the light
fallng on his face revealed handsome young
features, a mobile, sensitive mouth, and that
particular formation of the eyebrows—not a
frown exactly, but a certain draw of the brows
—often considered to bespeak genius, but which
more surely accompanies an impulsive organiza-
tion easily pleased, easily depressed, capable of
suffering very keenly or of enjoying fully. In
his short life he had not enjoyed much, and he
had suffered a good deal. That night, when he
walked bareheaded through the rain, affairs had
come to a crisis. So far as he in his despair
felt able to see or reason, the best thing he
could do was to die. The world did not want
him; he would be better out of it.
The door of one of the houses stood open,
and he could see in the dimly lighted hall some
N


178 TVIE OLD HOUSE IN VA U.YHALL WALK.
few articles of furniture waiting to be removed.
A van stood beside the curb, and two men were
lifting a table into it as he, for a second, paused.
“Ah,” he thought, “even these poor people
have some place to go to, some shelter provided,
while I have not a roof to cover my head, or a
shilling to get a night's lodging.” And he went
on fast, as if memory were spurring him, so
fast that a man running after, had some trouble
to overtake him.
“Master Graham | Master Graham!” this man
exclaimed, breathlessly; and, thus addressed,
the young fellow stopped as if he had been shot.
“Who are you that know me?” he asked,
facing round.
“I'm William; don't you remember William,
Master Graham ? And, Lord's sake, sir, what
are you doing out a night like this without your
hat?”
“I forgot it,” was the answer; “and I did
not care to go back and fetch it.”
“Then why don't you buy another, sir? You'll
catch your death of cold; and besides, you'll
excuse me, sir, but it does look odd.”
“I know that,” said Master Graham, grimly;
“but I haven't a halfpenny in the world.”
“Have you and the master, then ,” began
the man, but there he hesitated and stopped.
“Had a quarrel? Yes, and one that will last


THE OLD HOUSE IN VAUXHALL WALK. 179
uS Ollr lives,” finished the other, with a bitter
laugh.
“And where are you going now?”
“Going! Nowhere, except to seek out the
softest paving stone, or the shelter of an arch.”
“You are joking, sir.”
“I don't feel much in a mood for jesting,
either.”
“Will you come back with me, Master
Graham P. We are just at the last of our
moving, but there is a spark of fire still in the
grate, and it would be better talking out of this
rain. Will you come, sir?”
“Come! Of course I will come,” said the
young fellow, and, turning, they retraced their
steps to the house he had looked into as he
passed along.
An old, old house, with long, wide hall, stairs
low, easy of ascent, with deep cornices to the
ceilings, and oak floorings, and mahogany doors,
which still spoke mutely of the wealth and
stability of the original owner, who lived before
the Tradescants and Ashmoles were thought of,
and had been sleeping far longer than they, in St.
Mary's churchyard, hard by the archbishop's
palace.
“Step upstairs, sir,” entreated the departing
tenant; “it’s cold down here, with the door
standing wide.”
N 2


18o THE OLD HOUSE IN JAULYHALL JVALK.
“Had you the whole house, then, William?”
asked Graham Coulton, in some surprise.
“The whole of it, and right sorry I, for one,
am to leave it; but nothing else would serve
my wife. This room, sir,” and with a little
conscious pride, William, doing the honours of
his late residence, asked his guest into a
spacious apartment occupying the full width of
the house on the first floor.
Tired though he was, the young man could
not repress an exclamation of astonishment.
“Why we have nothing so large as this at
home, William,” he said.
“It's a fine house,” answered William, raking
the embers together as he spoke, and throwing
some wood upon them; “but, like many a
good family, it has come down in the world.”
There were four windows in the room,
shuttered close; they had deep low seats,
suggestive of pleasant days gone by ; when,
well-curtained and well-cushioned, they formed
snug retreats for the children, and sometimes
for adults also ; there was no furniture ieft,
unless an oaken settle beside the hearth, and a
Iarge mirror let into the panelling at the
opposite end of the apartment, with a black
marble console table beneath it, could be so
considered; but the very absence of chairs
and tables enabled the magnificent proportions


MHE OLD IMOUSE IN JTAUATIALL W.M.L.K. 181
of the chamber to be seen to full advantage,
and there was nothing to distract the attention
from the ornamented ceiling, the panelled walls
the old-world chimney-piece so quaintly carved,
and the fire-place lined with tiles, each one of
which contained a picture of some scriptural or
allegorical subject.
“Had you been staying on here, William,” said
Mr. Coulton, flinging himself wearily on the
settle, “I’d have asked you to let me stop where
I am for the night.”
“If you can make shift, sir, there is nothing
as I am aware of to prevent you stopping,”
answered the man, fanning the wood into a
flame. “I shan’t take the key back to the
landlord till to-morrow, and this would be
better for you than the cold streets at any
rate.”
“Do you really mean what you say?” asked
the other eagerly. “I should be thankful to
lie here; I feel dead beat.”
“Then stay, Master Graham, and welcome.
I'll fetch a basket of coals I was going to put
in the van, and make up a good fire, so that you
can warm yourself; then I must run round to
the other house for a minute or two, but it's not
far, and I'll be back as soon as ever I can.”
“Thank you, William ; you were always
good to me,” said the young man, gratefully.


182 THE OLD HOUSE IN VAUATHALL JWALK.
“This is delightful,” and he stretched his
numbed hands over the blazing wood, and
looked round the room with a satisfied smile.
“I did not expect to get into such quarters,”
he remarked, as his friend in need re-appeared,
carrying a half-bushel basket full of coals, with
which he proceeded to make up a roaring fire.
“I am sure the last thing I could have imagined
was meeting with anyone I knew in Vauxhall
Walk.”
“Where were you coming from, Master
Graham?” asked William, curiously.
“From old Melfield's. I was at his school
once, you know, and he has now retired, and is
living upon the proceeds of years of robbery
in Kennington Oval. I thought, perhaps he
would lend me a pound, or offer me a night's
lodging, or even a glass of wine; but, oh! dear
no. He took the moral tone, and observed he
could have nothing to say to a son who defied
his father's authority. He gave me plenty of
advice, but nothing else, and showed me out
into the rain with a bland courtesy, for which I
could have struck him.”
William muttered something under his breath
which was not a blessing, and added aloud—
“You are better here, sir, I think, at any
rate. I’ll be back in less than half an hour.”
Left to himself, young Coulton took off his


THE OLD HOUSE IN VA U.KHALL WALK. 183
coat, and shifting the settle a little, hung it
over the end to dry. With his handkerchief he
rubbed some of the wet out of his hair; then,
perfectly exhausted, he lay down before the fire,
and pillowing his head on his arm, fell fast asleep.
He was awakened nearly an hour afterwards
by the sound of some one gently stirring the
fire and moving quietly about the room. Start-
ing into a sitting posture, he looked around him,
bewildered for a moment, and then, recognising
his humble friend, said, laughingly—
“I had lost myself; I could not imagine
where I was.” -
“I am sorry to see you here, sir,” was the
reply; “but still this is better than being out
of doors. It has come on a nasty night. I
brought a rug round with me that, perhaps,
you would wrap yourself in.”
“I wish, at the same time, you had brought
me something to eat,” said the young man,
laughing.
“Are you hungry, sir, then?” asked William,
in a tone of concern.
“Yes; I have had nothing to eat since break-
fast. The governor and I commenced rowing
the minute we sat down to luncheon, and I rose
and left the table. But hunger does not sig-
nify; I am dry and warm, and can forget the
other matter in sleep.”


184 T 11E (/LD IIOUSE IN VA U.VIIALL WALK
**
“And it's too late now, to buy anything,
s liloquized the man; “the shops are all shut
long ago. Do you think, sir,” he added,
brightening, “you could manage some bread
and cheese?”
“Do I think I should call it a perfect
feast?” answered Graham Coulton. “But never
mind about food to-night, William; you have
had trouble enough, and to spare, already.”
William's only answer was to dart to the door
and run down stairs. Presently he re-appeared,
carrying in one hand bread and cheese wrapped
up in paper, and in the other a pewter measure
full of beer.
“It's the best I could do, sir,” he said,
apologetically. “I had to beg this from the
landlady.”
“Here's to her good health !” exclaimedt he
young fellow gaily, taking a long pull at the
tankard. “That tastes better than champagne
partaken of in my father's house.”
“Won't he be uneasy about you?” ventured
William, who, having by this time emptied the
coals, was now seated on the inverted basket,
looking wistfully at the relish with which the
son of his former master was cating his bread
and cheese.
“No,” was the decided answer. “When he
hears it pouring cats and dogs he will only hope


THE OLD HOUSE IN VAUXIIALL WALK. 185
I am out in the deluge, and say a good
drenching will cool my pride.”
“I do not think you are right there,”
remarked the man.
“But I am sure I am. My father always
hated me, as he hated my mother.”
“Begging your pardon, sir; he was over
fond of your mother.”
“If you had heard what he said about her
to-day, you might find reason to alter your
opinion. He told me I resembled her in mind
as well as body; that I was a coward, a
simpleton, and a hypocrite.”
“He did not mean it, sir.”
“He did, every word. He does think
I am a coward, because I—I—” And the
young fellow broke into a passion of hysteri-
cal tears.
“I don't half like leaving you here alone,”
said William, glancing round the room with a
quick trouble in his eyes; “but I have no place
fit to ask you to stop, and I am forced to go
myself, because I am night watchman, and must
be on at twelve o'clock.”
“I shall be right enough,” was the answer.
“Only I mustn't talk any more of my father.
Tell me about yourself, William. How did you
manage to get such a big house, and why are
you leaving it?”


1S6 THE OLD HOUSE IN VA UAHALL WALK.
“The landlord put me in charge, sir; and it
was my wife's fancy not to like it.”
“Why did she not like it?”
“She felt desolate alone with the children
at night,” answered William, turning away his
head; then added, next minute: “Now sir, if
you think I can do no more for you, I had best
be off. Time's getting on. I'll look round to-
morrow morning.” -
“Good-night,” said the young fellow, stretch-
ing out his hand, which the other took as freely
and frankly as it was offered. “What should I
have done this evening if I had not chanced
to meet you?”
“I don't think there is much chance in the
world, Master Graham,” was the quiet answer.
“I do hope you will rest well, and not be the
worse for your wetting.”
“No fear of that,” was the rejoinder, and the
next minute the young man found himself all
alone in the Old House in Vauxhall Walk.


THE OLD I10 USE IN WAUANIALL WALK. 187
CIIAPTER II.
YING on the settle, with the fire burnt out,
and the room in total darkness, Graham
Coulton dreamed a curious dream. He thought
he awoke from deep slumber to find a log
smouldering away upon the hearth, and the
mirror at the end of the apartment reflecting
fitful gleams of light. He could not understand
how it came to pass that, far away as he was
from the glass, he was able to see everything in
it; but he resigned himself to the difficulty
without astonishment, as people generally do
in dreams.
Neither did he feel surprised when he beheld
the outline of a female figure seated beside the
fire, engaged in picking something out of her
lap, and dropping it with a despairing gesture.
IIe heard the mellow sound of gold, and
knew she was lifting and dropping sovereigns.
lie turned a little so as to see the person
engaged in such a singular and meaningless
manner, and found that, where there had been
no chair on the previous night, there was a
chair now, on which was seated an old,
wrinkled hag, her clothes poor and ragged,


188 THE OLD HOUSE IN JAU.YHAL., W.I.L.A.
a mob cap barely covering her scant white
hair, her cheeks sunken, her nose hooked,
her fingers more like talons than ought else
as they dived down into the heap of gold,
portions of which they lifted but to scatter
mournfully.
“Oh! my lost life,” she moaned, in a voice of
the bitterest anguish. “Oh ! my lost life—for
one day, for one hour of it again!”
Out of the darkness—out of the corner of
the room where the shadows lay deepest—out
from the gloom abiding near the door—out
from the dreary night, with their sodden feet
and the wet dripping from their heads, came
the old men and the young children, the worn
women and the weary hearts, whose misery
that gold might have relieved, but whose
wretchedness it mocked.
Round that miser, who once sate gloating as
she now sate lamenting, they crowded—all
those pale, sad shapes—the aged of days, the
infant of hours, the sobbing outcast, honest
poverty, repentant vice; but one low cry
proceeded from those pale lips—a cry for
help she might have given, but which she
withheld.
They closed about her, all together, as they
had done singly in life; they prayed, they
sobbed, they entreated; with haggard eyes


THE OLD HOUSE IN VAULITIALL WALK. 189
the figure regarded the poor she had repulsed,
the children against whose cry she had closed
her ears, the old people she had suffered to
starve and die for want of what would have
been the merest trifle to her; then, with a
terrible scream, she raised her lean arms above
her head, and sank down—down—the gold
scattering as it fell out of her lap, and rolling
along the floor, till its gleam was lost in the
outer darkness beyond.
Then Graham Coulton awoke in good earnest,
with the perspiration oozing from every pore,
with a fear and an agony upon him such as
he had never before felt in all his existence,
and with the sound of the heart-rending cry
—“Oh! my lost life”—still ringing in his
earS.
Mingled with all, too, there seemed to have
been some lesson for him which he had for-
gotten, that, try as he would, eluded his
memory, and which, in the very act of waking,
glided away. -
He lay for a little thinking about all this,
and then, still heavy with sleep, retraced his
way into dreamland once more.
It was natural, perhaps, that, mingling with
the strange fantasies which follow in the train of
night and darkness, the former vision should
recur, and the young man ere long found


190 TIME OLD HOUSE IN VAULVIIALL WALK,
himself toiling through scene after scene
wherein the figure of the woman he had seen
seated beside a dying fire held principal place.
He saw her walking slowly across the floor
munching a dry crust—she who could have
purchased all the luxuries wealth can com-
mand; on the hearth, comtemplating her,
stood a man of commanding presence, dressed
in the fashion of a far gone-by time. In his
eyes there was a dark look of anger, on his
lips a curling smile of disgust, and somehow,
even in his sleep, the dreamer understood it
was the ancestor to the descendant he beheld
—that the house put to mean uses in which
he lay had never so far descended from its
high estate, as the woman possessed of so
pitiful a soul, contaminated with the most
despicable and insidious vice poor humanity
knows, for all other vices seem to have con-
nection with the flesh, but the greed of the
miser eats into the very soul.
Filthy of person, repulsive to look at, hard of
heart, he yet beheld another phantom, which,
coming into the room, met her almost on the
threshold, taking her by the hand, and pleading
as it seemed for assistance. He could not hear
all that passed, but a word now and then fell
upon his ear. Some talk of former days;
some mention of a fair young mother—an


THE OLD HOUSE IN VA U-VHALL WALK. 191
appeal, as it seemed, to a time when they were
tiny brother and sister, and the accursed greed
for gold had not divided them. All in vain;
the hag only answered him as she had answered
the children, and the young girls, and the old
people in his former vision. Her heart was
as invulnerable to natural affection as it had
proved to human sympathy. He begged, as
it appeared, for aid to avert some bitter
misfortune or terrible disgrace, and adamant
might have been found more yielding to his
prayer. Then the figure standing on the
hearth changed to an angel, which folded its
wings mournfully over its face, and the man,
with bowed head, slowly left the room.
Even as he did so the scene changed again;
it was night once more, and the miser wended
her way upstairs. From below, Graham
Coulton fancied he watched her toiling wearily
from step to step. She had aged strangely
since the previous scenes. She moved
with difficulty; it seemed the greatest exertion
for her to creep from step to step, her skinny
hand traversing the balusters with slow and
painful deliberateness. Fascinated, the young
man's eyes followed the progress of that feeble,
decrepid woman. She was solitary in a deso-
late house, with a deeper blackness than the
darkness of night waiting to engulf her.


192 TIME OLD IIOUSE IN JTAUATIALL WALK.
It seemed to Graham Coulton that after
that he lay for a time in a stilll, dreamless
sleep, upon awaking from which he found
himself entering a chamber as sordid and
unclean in its appointments as the woman of
his previous vision had been in her person.
The poorest labourer's wife would have gathered
more comforts around her than that room
contained. A four-post bedstead without hang-
ings of any kind—a blind drawn up awry—
an old carpet covered with dust and dirt on
the floor—a rickety washstand with all the
paint worn off it—an ancient mahogany dress-
ing table, and a cracked glass spotted all over---
were all the objects he could at first discern,
looking at the room through that dim light
which oftentimes obtains in dreams.
By degrees, however, he perceived the out-
line of someone lying huddled together on the
bed. Drawing nearer, he found it was that
of the person whose dreadful presence seemed
to pervade the house. What a terrible sight
she looked, with her thin white locks scattered
over the pillow, with what were mere remnants
of blankets gathered about her shoulders, with
her claw-like fingers clutching the clothes, as
though even in sleep she was guarding her
gold !
An awful and a repulsive spectacle, but not


TXNE OLD HOUSE IN VAULYHALL WALK. 193
with half the terror in it of that which fol-
lowed. Even as the young man looked he
heard stealthy footsteps on the stairs. Then
he saw first one man, and then his fellow steal
cautiously into the room. Another second,
and the pair stood beside the bed, murder in
their eyes.
Graham Coulton tried to shout—tried to
move, but the deterrent power which exists
in dreams only, tied his tongue and paralyzed
his limbs. He could but hear and look, and
what he heard and saw was this—aroused
suddenly from sleep, the woman started, only
to receive a blow from one of the ruffians,
whose fellow followed his lead by plunging a
knife into her breast.
Then, with a gurgling scream, she fell back
on the bed, and at the same moment, with a
cry, Graham Coulton again awoke, to thank
heaven it was but an illusion.


I94 TIIE OLD IIOUSE IN VAU YHALL WALK.
CIIAPTER III.
“I IIOPE you slept well, sir.” It was
William, who, coming into the hall with
the sunlight of a fine bright morning streaming
after him, asked this question: “Had you a
good night's rest?”
Graham Coulton laughed, and answered:
“Why, faith, I was somewhat in the case
of Paddy, “who could not slape for dhraming.’
I slept well enough, I suppose, but whether
it was in consequence of the row with my dad,
or the hard bed, or the bread and cheese–
most likely the bread and cheese so late at
night—I dreamt all the night long, the most
extraordinary dreams. Some old woman kept
cropping up, and I saw her murdered.”
“You don't say that, sir,” said William,
nervously.
“I do, indeed,” was the reply. “However,
that is all gone and past. I have been down
in the kitchen and had a good wash, and
I am as fresh as a daisy, and as hungry as
a hunter; and, oh, William, can you get me
any breakfast?”


THE OLD HOUSE IN ra UXIIALL }}ALK. 195
“Certainly, Master Graham. I have brought
round a kettle, and I will make the water boil
immediately. I suppose, sir”—this tentatively
—“you'll be going home to-day?”
“Home!” repeated the young man, “de-
cidedly not. I’ll never go home again till I
return with some medal hung to my coat, or
a leg or arm cut off. I’ve thought it all out,
William. I'll go and enlist. There's a talk
of war; and, living or dead, my father shall
have reason to retract his opinion about my
being a coward.”
“I am sure the admiral never thought you
anything of the sort, sir,” said William.
“Why, you have the pluck of ten l”
“Not before him,” answered the young fellow,
sadly.
“You’ll do nothing rash, Master Graham;
you won't go 'listing, or aught of that sort, in
your anger?”
“If I do not, what is to become of me?”
asked the other. “I cannot dig–to beg I
am ashamed. Why, but for you, I should not
have had a roof over my head last night.”
“Not much of a roof, I am afraid, sir.”
“Not much of a roof!” repeated the young
man. “Why, who could desire a better?
What a capital room this is,” he went on,
looking around the apartment, where William


196 THE OLD HOUSE IN JTA U-YNIALL J.W.A.L.
was now kindling a fire; “one might dine
twenty people here easily !”
“If you think so well of the place, Master
Graham, you might stay here for a while, till
you have made up your mind what you are
going to do. The landlord won't make any
objection, I am very sure.”
“Oh! nonsense; he would want a long rent
for a house like this.”
“I daresay; if he could get it,” was William's
significant answer.
“What do you mean? Won't the place let?”
“No, sir. I did not tell you last night, but
there was a murder done here, and people are
shy of the house ever since.”
“A murder ! What sort of a murder? Who
was murdered?”
“A woman, Master Graham—the landlord's
sister; she lived here all alone, and was supposed
to have money. Whether she had or not, she
was found dead from a stab in her breast, and if
there ever was any money, it must have been
taken at the same time, for none ever was found
in the house from that day to this.”
“Was that the reason your wife would not
stophere?” asked the young man, leaning against
the mantelshelf, and looking thoughtfully down
on William.
“Yes, sir. She could not stand it any longer;


TIME OLD HOUSE IN VAULYHALL WALK. 197
she got that thin and nervous no one would have
believed possible; she never saw anything, but
she said she heard footsteps and voices, and then
when she walked through the hall, or up the
staircase, someone always seemed to be following
her. We put the children to sleep in that big
room you had last night, and they declared they
often saw an old woman sitting by the hearth.
Nothing ever came my way,” finished William,
with a laugh; “I was always ready to go to
sleep the minute my head touched the pillow.”
“Were not the murderers discovered?”
asked Graham Coulton.
“No, sir; the landlord, Miss Tynan's brother,
has always lain under the suspicion of it—quite
wrongfully, I am very sure—but he will never
clear himself now. It was known he came and
asked her for help a day or two before the mur-
der, and it was also known he was able within a
week or two to weather whatever trouble had
been harassing him. Then, you see, the money
was never found; and, altogether, people scarce
knew what to think.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Graham Coulton, and
he took a few turns up and down the apartment.
“Could I go and see this landlord?”
“Surely, sir, if you had a hat,” answered
William, with such a serious decorum that the
young man burst out laughing.


198 TIIE OLD HOUSE IN VAULYHALL WALK.
*
“That is an obstacle, certainly,” he re-
marked, “and I must make a note do instead.
I have a pencil in my pocket, so here goes.”
Within half an hour from the dispatch of that
note William was back again with a sovereign;
the landlord's compliments, and he would be
much obliged if Mr. Coulton could “step round.”
“You’ll do nothing rash, sir,” entreated
William. -
“Why, man,” answered the young fellow,
“one may as well be picked off by a ghost as a
bullet. What is there to be afraid of?”
William only shook his head. He did not
think his young master was made of the stuff
likely to remain alone in a haunted house, and
solve the mystery it assuredly contained by dint
of his own unassisted endeavours. And yet
when Graham Coulton came out of the landlord's
house he looked more bright and gay than usual,
and walked up the Lambeth road to the place
where William awaited his return, humming an
air as he paced along.
“We have settled the matter,” he said. “And
now if the dad wants his son for Christmas, it
will trouble him to find him.”
“Don’t say that, Master Graham, don’t,” en-
treated the man, with a shiver; “may be after
all it would have been better if you had never
happened to chance upon Vauxhall Walk.”


THE OLD HOUSE IN VA U-XHALL WALK. I99
“Don’t croak, William,” answered the young
man; “if it was not the best day's work I ever
did for myself I'm a Dutchman.”
During the whole of that forenoon and after-
noon, Graham Coulton searched diligently for
the missing treasure Mr. Tynan assured him
had never been discovered. Youth is confident
and self opinionated, and this fresh explorer felt
satisfied that, though others had failed, he would
be successful. On the second floor he found one
door locked, but he did not pay much attention
to that at the moment, as he believed if there
was anything concealed, it was more likely to be
found in the lower, than the upper part of the
house. Late into the evening, he pursued his re-
searches in the kitchen and cellars and old-fash-
ioned cupboards, of which the basement had an
abundance.
It was nearly eleven, when, engaged in poking
about amongst the empty bins of a wine cellar
as large as a family vault, he suddenly felt a rush
of cold air at his back. Moving, his candle was
instantly extinguished, and in the very moment
of being left in darkness, he saw, standing in the
doorway, a woman, resembling her who had
haunted his dreams over night.
He rushed with outstretched hands to seize
her, but clutched only air. He relit his candle,
and closely examined the basement, shutting off


2Oo THE OLD HOUSE IN VAUXHALL WALK.
communication with the ground floor ere doing
so. All in vain. Not a trace could he find of
living creature—not a window was open–not
a door unbolted.
“lt is very odd,” he thought, as, after securely
fastening the door at the top of the staircase, he
searched the whole upper portion of the house,
with the exception of the one room mentioned.
“I must get the key of that to-morrow,” he
decided, standing gloomily with his back to the
fire and his eyes wandering about the drawing-
room, where he had once again taken up his
abode.
Even as the thought passed through his mind,
he saw standing in the open doorway a woman
with white dishevelled hair, clad in mean gar-
ments, ragged and dirty. She lifted her hand
ind shook it at him with a menacing gesture,
and then, just as he was darting towards her,
a wonderful thing occurred.
From beside the great mirror there glided a
second female figure, at the sight of which the
first turned and fled, uttering piercing shrieks
as the other followed her from story to story.
Sick almost with terror, Graham Coulton
watched the dreadful pair as they fled upstairs
past the locked room to the top of the house.
It was a few minutes belore he recovered his
self-possession. When he did so, and searched


THE OLD HOUSE IN VAULYHALL WALK. 2OI
the upper apartments, he found them totally
cmpty.
That night, ere lying down before the fire,
he carefully locked and bolted the drawing-room
door; before he did more he drew the heavy
settle in front of it, so that if the lock were
forced, no entrance could be effected without
considerable noise.
For some time he lay awake, then dropped
into a deep sleep, from which he was awakened
suddenly by a noise as if of something scuffling
stealthily behind the wainscot. He raised him-
self on his elbow and listened, and, to his con-
sternation, beheld seated at the opposite side of
the hearth the same woman he had before in
dreams, seen lamenting over her gold.
The fire was not quite out, and at that mo-
ment shot up a last tongue of flame. By the
light, transient as it was, he saw that the figure
pressed a ghostly finger to its lips, and by the
turn of its head and the attitude of its body
seemed to be listening.
He listened also—indeed he was too much
frightened to do aught else; more and more
distinct grew the sounds which had aroused him,
a stealthy rustling coming nearer and nearer—
up and up it seemed, behind the wainscot.
“It is rats,” thought the young man, though,
indeed, his teeth were almost chattering in his


2O2 THE OLD HOUSE IN VAULATIALL WALK.
head with fear. But then in a moment he saw
what disabused him of that idea—the gleam of a
candle or lamp through a crack in the panelling.
Be tried to rise, he strove to shout—all in vain;
and, sinking down, remembered nothing more
till he awoke to find the grey light of an early
morning stealing through one of the shutters he
had left partially unclosed.
For hours after his breakfast, which he
scarcely touched, long after William had left
him at mid-day, Graham Coulton, having in the
morning made a long and close survey of the
house, sat thinking before the fire, then, appar-
ently having made up his mind, he put on the hat
he had bought, and went out.
When he returned, the evening shadows were
darkening down, but the pavements were full of
people going marketing, for it was Christmas
Eve, and all who had money to spend seemed
bent on shopping.
It was terribly dreary inside the old house
that night. Through the deserted rooms
Graham could feel that ghostly semblance was
wandering mournfully. When he turned his
back he knew she was flitting from the mirror
to the fire, from the fire to the mirror; but he was
not afraid of her now—he was far more afraid
of another matter he had taken in hand that
day.


THE OLD HOUSE IN WAUATHALL WALK. 203
The horror of the silent house grew and grew
upon him. He could hear the beating of his
own heart in the dead quietude, which reigned
from garret to cellar.
At last William came; but the young man
said nothing to him of what was in his mind.
He talked to him cheerfully and hopefully
enough—wondered where his father would
think he had got to, and hoped Mr. Tynan
might send him some Christmas pudding.
Then the man said it was time for him to
go, and, when Mr. Coulton went downstairs to
the hall-door, remarked the key was not in
it.
“No,” was the answer, “I took it out to-day,
to oil it.” -
“It wanted oiling,” agreed William, “for it
worked terribly stiff.” Having uttered which
truism he departed.
Very slowly the young man retraced his way
to the drawing-room, where he only paused to
lock the door on the outside, then taking off his
boots he went up to the top of the house,
where, entering the front attic, he waited
patiently in darkness and in silence.
It was a long time, or at least it seemed
long to him, before he heard the same sound
which had aroused him on the previous night
—a stealthy rustling—then a rush of cold air-


2O4 THE OLD HOUSE IN VAULYHALL WALK.
then cautious foot-steps—then the quiet opening
of a door below. -
It did not take as long in action as it has
required to tell. In a moment the young man
was out on the landing and had closed a portion
of the panelling on the wall which stood open;
noiselessly he crept back to the attic window,
unlatched it, and sprung a rattle, the sound of
which echoed far and near through the deserted
streets, then rushing down the stairs, he
encountered a man who, darting past him, made
for the landing above; but perceiving that way
of escape closed, fled down again to find
Graham struggling desperately with his fellow.
“Give him the knife—come along,” he said
savagely; and next instant Graham felt some-
thing like a hot iron through his shoulder, and
then heard a thud, as one of men, tripping in
his rapid flight, fell from the top of the stairs to
the bottom.
At the same moment there came a crash as if
the house was falling, and faint, sick, and bleed-
ing, young Coulton lay insensible on the
threshold of the room where Miss Tynan had
been murdered.
When he recovered he was in the dining
room, and a doctor examining his wound.
Near the door a policeman stiffly kept guard.
The hall was full of people; all the misery and


THE OLD HOUSE IN VA U-YHALL JVALK. 205
vagabondism the streets contain at that hour
was crowding in to see what had happened.
Through the midst two men were being con-
veyed to the station-house; one, with his head
dreadfully injured, on a stretcher, the other
handcuffed, uttering frightful imprecations as
he went.
After a time the house was cleared of the
rabble, the police took possession of it, and
Mr. Tynan was sent for.
“What was that dreadful noise?” asked
Graham, feebly, now seated on the floor, with
his back resting against the wall.
“I do not know. Was there a noise?” said
Mr. Tynan, humouring his fancy, as he
thought.
“Yes, in the drawing room, I think; the key
is in my pocket.”
Still humouring the wounded lad, Mr. Tynan
took the key and ran upstairs.
When he unlocked the door, what a sight
met his eyes! The mirror had fallen—it was
iying all over the floor shivered into a thousand
ieces; the console table had been borne down
# its weight, and the marble slab was shat-
tered as well. But this was not what chained
his attention. Hundreds, thousands of gold
pieces were scattered about, and an aperture
behind the glass contained boxes filled with se-


2C6 THE OLD HOUSE IN VAULYHALL WALK.
curities and deeds and bonds, the possession of
which had cost his sister her life.
* # so • ©
“Well, Graham, and what do you want!”
asked Admiral Coulton that evening as his
eldest born appeared before him, looking some-
what pale, but otherwise unchanged.
“I want nothing,” was the answer, “but to
ask your forgiveness. William has told me all
the story I never knew before; and, if you let
me, I will try to make it up to you for the
trouble you have had. I am provided for,”
went on the young fellow, with a nervous
laugh; “I have made my fortune since I left
you, and another man's fortune as well.”
“I think you are out of your senses,” said
the Admiral, shortly.”
“No sir, I have found them,” was the an-
swer; “and I mean to strive and make a bet-
ter thing of my life than I should ever have
done had I not gone to the Old House in
Vauxhall Walk.”
“Vauxhall Walk! What is the lad talking
about P”
“I will tell you sir, if I may sit down,” was
Graham Coulton's answer, and then he told
this story.


SANDY THE TINKER,
e-a-wes •-e''2/w-->
66 BEFo: commencing my story, I wish to
state it is perfectly true in every par-
ticular.”
“We quite understand that,” said the sceptic
of our party, who was wont, in the security of
friendly intercourse, to characterise all such
prefaces as mere introductions to some tremen-
dous ‘blank,’ ‘blank,’ ‘blank, which trio the
reader can fill up at his own pleasure and
leisure.
On the occasion in question, however, we had
donned our best behaviour, a garment which did
not sit ungracefully on some of us; and our
host, who was about to draw out from the
stores of memory one narrative for our entertain-
ment, was scarcely the person before whom
even Jack Hill would have cared to express his
cynical and unbelieving views.
We were seated, an incongruous company
of ten persons, in the best room of an old
manse among the Scottish hills. Accident had


2 8 SANDY THE TINKER.
thrown us together, and accident had driven us
under the minister's hospitable roof. Cold, wet,
and hungry, drenched with rain, sorely beaten
by the wind, we had crowded through the door
opened by a friendly hand, and now, wet no
longer, the pangs of hunger assuaged with
smoking rashers of ham, poached eggs, and
steaming potatoes, we sat around a blazing fire,
drinking toddy out of tumblers, whilst the two
ladies who graced the assemblage partook of a
modicum of the same beverage from wine
glasses.
Everything was eminently comfortable, but
conducted upon the most correct principles. Jack
could no more have taken it upon him to shock
the minister's ear with some of the opinions he
aired in Fleet Street, than he could have asked
for more whisky with his water.
“Yes, it is perfectly true,” continued the
minister, looking thoughtfully at the fire. “I
can’t explain it, I cannot even try to explain it.
I will tell you the story exactly as it occurred,
however, and leave you to draw your own
deductions from it.”
None of us answered. We fell into listening
attitudes instantly, and eighteen eyes fixed
themselves by one accord upon our host.
He was an old man, but hale. The weight of
ighty winters had whitened his head, but not


S (NDY THE TINKER. 209
bowed it. He seemed young as any of us—
younger than Jack Hill, who was a reviewer
and a newspaper hack, and whose way through
life had not been altogether on easy lines.
“Thirty years ago, upon a certain Friday
morning in August,” began the minister, “I was
sitting at breakfast in the room on the other
side of the passage, where you ate your supper,
when the servant girl came in with a letter, she
said a laddie, all out of breath, had brought
over from Dendeldy Manse. ‘He was bidden
rin a the way, she went on, “and he's fairly
beaten.”
“I told her to make the messenger sit down,
and put food before him; and then, when she
went to do my bidding, proceeded, I must con-
fess with some curiosity, to break the seal of a
missive forwarded in such hot haste.
“It was from the minister at Dendeldy, who
had been newly chosen to occupy the pulpit
his deceased father occupied for a quarter of a
century and more.
“The call from the congregation originated
rather out of respect to the father's memory
than any extraordinary liking for the son. He
had been reared for the most part in England,
and was somewhat distant and formal in his
manners; and, though full of Greek and Latin
and Hebrew, wanted the true Scotch accent, that
P


2IO SANDY THE TINKER.
goes straight to the heart of those accustomed
to the broad, honest, tender Scottish tongue.
“His people were proud of him, but they did
not just like all his ways. They could remem-
ber him a lad running about the whole country
side, and they could not understand, and did not
approve of, his holding them at arm's length,
and shutting himself up among his books and
refusing their hospitality, and sending out word
he was busy when maybe some very decent man
wanted speech of him. I had taken upon my-
self to point out that I thought he was wrong,
and that he would alienate his flock from him.
Perhaps it was for this very reason, because I
was blunt and plain, he took to me kindly, and
never got on his high horse, no matter what I
said to him.
“Well, to return to the letter. It was written
in the wildest haste, and entreated me not to
Jose a moment in coming to him, as he was in the
very greatest distress and anxiety. “Let nothing
delay you, he proceeded. ‘If I cannot speak to
you soon I believe I shall go out of my senses.’
“‘What could be the matter?' I thought.
“What in all the wide earth could have
happened?”
“I had seen him but a few days before, and
he was in good health and spirits, getting on
better with his people, feeling hopeful of so


SANDY THE TINKEI. 2II
altering his style of preaching as to touch their
hearts more sensibly.
“‘I must lay aside Southern ideas as well as
accent, if I can, he went on, smiling. “Men
who live such lives of hardship and privation,
who cast their seed into the ground under such
rigorous skies, and cut their corn in fear and
trembling at the end of late uncertain summers,
who take the sheep out of the snow-drifts and
carry the lambs into shelter beside their own
humble hearths, must want a different sort of
sermon from those who sleep softly and walk
delicately.”
“I had implied something of all this myself,
and it amused me to find my own thoughts
come back clothed in different fashion and pre-
sented to me quite as strangers. Still, all I
wanted was his good, and I felt glad he showed
such aptitude to learn.
“What could have happened, however,
puzzled me sorely. As I made my hurried pre-
parations for setting out I fairly perplexed
myself with speculation. I went into the
kitchen, where his messenger was eating some
breakfast, and asked him if Mr. Cawley was ill.
“‘I dinna ken, he answered. “He mad’
no complaint, but he luiked awfu bad, just
awfu'."
“‘In what way?' I inquired.


2I2 sANDY THE TINKEIR.
“As if he had seen a ghaist, was the
reply.
“This made me very uneasy, and I jumped to
the conclusion the trouble was connected with
money matters. Young men will be young
men;” and here the minister looked signifi-
cantly at the callow bird of our company, a
youth who had never owed a sixpence in his life
or given away a cent; while Jack Hill—no
chicken, by the way—was over head and ears
in debt, and could not keep a sovereign in
his pocket, though spending or bestowing it,
involved going dinnerless the next day.
“Young men will be young men,” repeated
the minister, in his best pulpit manner (“Just
as though any one expected them to be young
women!” grumbled Jack to me afterwards),
“ and I feared that now he was settled and com-
fortably off, some old creditor he had been paying
as best he could, might have become pressing. I
knew nothing of his liabilities, or, beyond the
amount of the stipend paid him, the state of his
pecuniary affairs; but, having once in my own life
made myself responsible for a debt, I was aware
of all the trouble putting your arm out further
than you can draw it back involves, and I con-
sidered that most probably money, which is the
root of all evil” (“and all good,” Jack's eyes sug-
gested to me), “was the cause of my young


SANDY THE TINKER. 213
friend's agony of mind. Blessed with a large
family—every one of whom is now alive and
doing well, I thank God, out in the world—you
may imagine I had not much opportunity for
laying by; still, I had put aside a little for a rainy
day, and that little I placed in my pocket-book,
hoping even a small sum might prove of use in
case of emergency.”
“Come, you are a trump,” I saw written
plainly on Jack Hill's face; and he settled him-
self to listen to the remainder of the minister's
story in a manner which could not be considered
other than complimentary.
Duly and truly I knew quite well he had
already devoted the first five-guinea cheque
he received to the poor of that minister's
parish.
“By the road,” proceeded our host, “Dendeldy
is distant from here ten long miles, but by a
short cut across the hills it can be reached in
something under six. For me it was nothing of
walk, and accordingly I arrived at the manse
ere noon.”
He paused, and, though thirty years had
elapsed, drew a handkerchief across his forehead
ere he continued his narrative.
“I had to climb a steep brae to reach the
front door, but ere I could breast it my friend
met me.


2I4 SANDY THE TINKER.
“‘Thank God you are come, he said, pressing
my hand in his. “Oh, I am grateful.”
“He was trembling with excitement. His
face was of a ghastly pallor. His voice was
that of a person suffering from some terrible
shock, labouring under some awful fear.
“‘What has happened, Edward?' I asked.
I had known him when he was a little boy. “I
am distressed to see you in such a state. Rouse
yourself; be a man; whatever may have gone
wrong can possibly be righted. I have come
over to do all that lies in my power for you.
If it is a matter of money 5
“‘No, no; it is not money, he interrupted;
“would that it were !’ and he began to tremble
again so violently that really he communicated
some part of his nervousness to me, and put me
into a state of perfect terror.
“‘Whatever it is, Cawley, out with it, I said;
‘have you murdered anybody?’
“‘No, it is worse than that, he answered.
“‘But that's just nonsense, I declared. “Are
you in your right mind, do you think?'
“‘I wish I were not, he returned. ‘I’d like
to know I was stark staring mad; it would be
happier for me—far, far happier.’
“‘If you don't tell me this minute what
is the matter, I shall turn on my heel and
tramp my way home again, I said, half in a


SANDY THE TINKER. - 215
passion, for what I thought his folly angered
Ine.
“‘Come into the house, he entreated, “and
try to have patience with me; for indeed, Mr.
Morison, I am sorely troubled. I have been
through my deep waters, and they have gone
clean over my head.’
“We went into his little study and sat down.
For a while he remained silent, his head resting
upon his hand, struggling with some strong
emotion; but after about five minutes he asked,
in a low subdued voice,
“Do you believe in dreams?’
“‘What has my belief to do with the matter
in hand?' I inquired.
“‘It is a dream, an awful dream, that is.
troubling me.’
“I rose from my chair.
“Do you mean to say, I asked, “you have
brought me from my business and my parish to
tell me you have had a bad dream?’
“‘That is just what I do mean to say, he
answered “At least, it was not a dream—it
was a vision; no, I don't mean a vision-
I can't tell you what it was; but nothing I
ever went through in actual life was half so
real, and I have bound myself to go through
it all again. There is no hope for me, Mr.
Morison. I sit before you a lost creature, the


216 SANDI THE TI-NKEI.
most miserable man on the face of the whole
carth.”
“‘What did you dream?' I inquired.
“A dreadful fit of trembling again seized
him; but at last he managed to say,
“‘I have been like this ever since, and I shall
be like this for evermore, till—till—the end
comes.’
“‘When did you have your bad dream?' I
asked.
“‘Last night, or rather this morning, he
answered. “I’ll tell you all about it in a
minute;’ and he covered his face with his
hands again.
“‘I was as well when I went to bed about
eleven o'clock as ever I was in my life, he began,
putting a great restraint upon himself, as I could
see by the nervous way he kept knotting and
unknotting his fingers. “I had been considering
my sermon, and felt satisfied I should be able to
deliver a good one next Sunday morning. I had
taken nothing after my tea, and I lay down in
my bed feeling at peace with all mankind, satis-
fied with my lot, thankful for the many blessings
vouchsafed to me. How long I slept, or what I
dreamt about at first, if I dreamt at all, I don’t
know; but after a time the mists seemed to clear
from before my eyes, to roll away like clouds
from a mountain summit, and I found myself


SANDY THE TINKER. 217
walking on a beautiful summer's evening beside
the river Deldy.’
“He paused for a moment, and an irrepres-
sible shudder shook his frame.
“‘Go on, I said, for I felt afraid of his break-
ing down again.
“He looked at me pitifully, with a hungry
entreaty in his weary eyes, and continued,
“‘It was a lovely evening. I had never thought
the earth so beautiful before: a gentle breeze
just touched my cheek; the water flowed on clear
and bright; the mountains in the distance looked
bright and glowing, covered with purple heather.
I walked on and on, till I came to that point
where, as you may perhaps remember, the path,
growing very narrow, winds round the base of a
great crag, and leads the wayfarer suddenly into
a little green amphitheatre, bounded on one side
by the river, and on the other by rocks, that rise
in places sheer to a height of a hundred feet
and more.’
“I remember it,” I said; “a little farther on
three streams meet and fall with a tremendous
roar into the Witches' Caldron. A fine sight in
the winter-time, only that there is scarce any
reaching it from below, as the path you mention
and the little green oasis are mostly covered
with water.”
“I had not been there before since I was a


218 SANDY THE TINKER.
child,” he went on, mournfully, “but I recollected
it as one of the most solitary spots possible; and
my astonishment was great, to see a man stand-
ing in the pathway, with a drawn sword in his
hand. He did not stir as I drew near, so I step-
ped aside on the grass. Instantly he barred my
way.
“‘You can’t pass here, he said.
“‘Why not?' I asked.
“‘Because I say so, he answered.
“‘And who are you that say so?' I in-
quired, looking full at him.
“He was like a god. Majesty and power
were written on every feature, were expressed
in every gesture; but 0, the awful scorn of his
smile, the contempt with which he regarded
me! The beams of the setting sun fell full
upon him, and seemed to bring out, as in letters
of fire, the wickedness and hate and sin, that
underlay the glorious and terrible beauty of his
face.
“I felt afraid; but I managed to say—
“‘Stand out of my way; the river-brink is
as free to me as to you.’ -
“‘Not this part of it, he answered; “this
place belongs to me.’
“Very well, I agreed, for I did not want
to stand there bandying words with him,
and a sudden darkness seemed to be falling


SANDY THE TINKER. 219
around. ‘It is getting late, and so I'll e'en
turn back.’
“He gave a laugh, the like of which never
fell on human ear before, and made reply,
“‘You can't turn back; of your own free
will you have come on my ground, and from
it there is no return.”
“‘I did not speak; I only just turned round,
and made as fast as I could for the
path at the foot of the crag. He did not
pass me, yet before I could reach the point I
desired he stood barring my progress, with the
scornful smile still on his lips, and his gigantic
form assuming tremendous proportions in the
narrow way.
“‘Let me pass, I entreated, ‘and I will
never come here again, never trespass more
on your ground.’
“‘No, you shall not pass.’
“‘Who are you that takes such power on
yourself?' I asked.
“‘Come closer, and I will tell you, he said.
“I drew a step nearer, and he spoke one
word. I had never heard it before, but, by some
extraordinary intuition, I knew what it meant.
He was the Evil One ; the name seemed to be
taken up by the echoes, and repeated from
rock to rock and crag to crag; the whole air
seemed full of that one word; and then a


22O SANDY THE TIM KEK'.
great horror of darkness came about us, only
the place where we stood remained light. We
occupied a small circle walled round with the
thick blackness of night.
“‘You must come with me, he said.
“I refused; and then he threatened me. I
implored and entreated and wept; but at last
I agreed to do what he wanted if he would
promise to let me return. Again he laughed,
and said, Yes, I should return; and the rocks
and trees and mountains, ay, and the very
rivers, seemed to take up the answer, and bear
it in sobbing whispers away into the darkness.”
“He stopped, and lay back in his chair, shiver-
ing like one in an ague fit.
“Go on,” I repeated again; “’twas but a
dream, you know.”
“Was it?” he murmured, mournfully. “Ah,
you have not heard the end of it yet.”
“Let me hear it, then,” I said. “What
happened afterwards?”
“The darkness seemed in part to clear away,
and we walked side by side across the sward
in the tender twilight, straight up to the bare
black wall of rock. With the hilt of his sword
he struck a heavy blow, and the solid rock
opened as though it were a door. We passed
through, and it closed behind us with a tre
mendous clang; yes, it closed behind us;”


S.A.N.D.Y. THE TINKER. 221 .
and at that point he fairly broke down, crying
and sobbing as I had never seen a man even
in the most frightful grief cry and sob before.
The minister paused in his narrative. At
that moment there came a most tremendous
blast of wind, which shook the windows of
the manse, and burst open the hall-door, and
caused the candles to flicker and the fire to
go roaring up the chimney. It is not too
much to say that, what with the uncanny story,
and what with the howling storm, we every
one felt that creeping sort of uneasiness which
so often seems like the touch of something
from another world—a hand stretched across
the boundary-line of time and eternity, the
coldness and mystery of which make the
stoutest heart tremble.
‘I am telling you this tale,” said Mr. Mori-
son, resuming his seat after a brief absence
to see that the fastenings of the house were
properly attended to, “exactly as I heard it.
I am not adding a word or comment of my
own, nor, so far as I know, am I omitting any
incident, however trivial. You must draw
your own deductions from the facts I put
before you. I have no explanation to give
or theory to propound. Part of that great
and terrible region in which he found himself,
my friend went on to tell me, he penetrated,


222 SANDY THE TINKEI.
compelled by a power he could not resist to
see the most awful sights, the most frightful
sufferings. There was no form of vice that
had not there its representative. As they
moved along his companion told him the special
sin for which such horrible punishment was
being inflicted. Shuddering, and in mortal
agony, he was yet unable to withdraw his
eyes from the dreadful spectacle; the atmo-
sphere grew more unendurable, the sights
more and more terrible; the cries, groans,
blasphemies, more awful and heart rending.
“I can bear no more,” he gasped at last;
“let me go!”
“With a mocking laugh, the Presence beside
him answered this appeal; a laugh which was
taken up, even by the lost and anguished spirits
around.
“There is no return,” said the pitiless
voice.
“But you promised,” he cried; “you pro-
mised me faithfully.”
“What are promises here?” and the words
were as the sound of doom.
‘Still he prayed and entreated; he fell on his
knees, and in his agony, spoke words that
seemed to cause the purpose of the Evil One to
falter.
“You shall go,” he said, “on one condition:


SANDY THE TINKER. 223
that you agree to return to me on Wednesday
next, or send a substitute.”
“I could not do that,” said my friend. “I
could not send any fellow-creature here. Better
stop myself than do that.”
“Then stop,” said Satan, with the bitterest
contempt; and he was turning away, when the
poor distracted soul asked for a minute more
ere he made his choice.
“He was in an awful strait: on the one hand,
how could he remain himself? on the other,
how doom another to such fearful torments?
Who could he send? Who would come? And
then suddenly there flashed through his mind
the thought of an old man to whom it could
not signify much whether he took up his abode
in this place a few days sooner or a few days
later. He was travelling to it as fast as he
knew how; he was the reprobate of the parish;
the sinner without hope successive ministers
had striven in vain to reclaim from the error of
his ways; a man marked and doomed—Sandy
the Tinker; Sandy, who was mostly drunk,
and always godless; Sandy, who, it was said,
believed in nothing, and gloried in his infidelity;
Sandy, whose soul really did not signify much.
He would send him. Lifting his eyes, he saw
those of his tormentor surveying him scorn-
fully.


224 SANDY THE TINKER.
“Well, have you made your choice?” he
asked.
“‘Yes; I think I can send a substitute, was
the hesitating answer. -
“‘See you do, then, was the reply; “for
if you do not, and fail to return yourself, I shall
come for you. Wednesday, remember, before
midnight;’ and with these words ringing in his
ears he was flung violently through the rock,
and found himself in the middle of his bed-
room floor, as if he had just been kicked there.”
“That is not the end of the story, is it?”
asked one of our party, as the minister came to
a full stop, and looked earnestly at the fire.
“No,” he answered, “it is not the end; but
before proceeding I must ask you to bear care-
fully in mind the circumstances already re-
counted. Specially remember the date men-
tioned—Wednesday newt, before midnight.
“Whatever I thought, and you may think,
about my friend's dream, it made the most
remarkable impression upon his mind. He
could not shake off its influence; he passed
from one state of nervousness to another. It
was in vain I entreated him to exert his
common sense, and call all his strength of
mind to his assistance. I might as well have
spoken to the wind. He implored me not to
leave him, and I agreed to remain; indecd,


SANDY THE TINKRR. 2.25
to leave him in his then frame of mind would
have been an act of the greatest cruelty. He
wanted me also to preach in his place on the
Sunday ensuing; but this I flatly refused.
“‘If you do not make an effort now, I said,
“you will never make it. Rouse yourself, get
on with your sermon, and if you buckle to
work you will soon forget all about that
foolish dream.”
“Well, to cut a long story short, the sermon
was somehow composed and Sunday came,
and my friend, a little better and getting over
his fret, walked up into the pulpit to preach. He
looked dreadfully ill; but I thought the worst
was now over, and that he would go on
mending.
“Wain hopel He gave out the text and then
looked over the congregation: the first person
on whom his eyes lighted was Sandy the Tinker
—Sandy, who had never before been known to
enter a place of worship of any sort; Sandy,
whom he had mentally chosen as his substi-
tute, and who was due on the following
Wednesday—sitting just below him, quite
sober, and comparatively clean, waiting with
a great show of attention for the opening
words of the sermon.
“With a terrible cry, nay friend caught the
front of the pulpit, then swayed back and fell
Q


226 SANDY THE TINKER.
down in a fainting fit. He was carried home
and a doctor sent for. I said a few words,
addressed apparently to the congregation, but
really to Sandy, for my heart, somehow, came
into my mouth at sight of him; and then,
after I had dismissed the people, I paced
slowly back to the manse, almost afraid of
what might meet me there.
“Mr. Cawley was not dead; but he was in
the most dreadful state of physical exhaustion
and mental agitation. It was dreadful to hear
him. How could he go himself? How could
he send Sandy?—poor old Sandy, whose soul,
in the sight of God, was just as precious as
his own.
“His whole cry was for us to deliver him
from the Evil One; to save him from com-
mitting a sin which would render him a
wretched man for life. He counted the
hours and the minutes before he must return
to that horrible place.
“I can’t send Sandy, he would moan. “I
cannot, O, I cannot save myself at such a price l’
“And then he would cover his face with the
bedclothes, only to start up and wildly entreat
me not to leave him; to stand between the
enemy and himself, to save him, or, if that
were impossible, to give him courage to do
what was right.


SANDY THE TINKER. 227
“‘If this continues, said the doctor,
‘Wednesday will find him either dead or a
raving lunatic.’
“We talked the matter over, the doctor and I,
in the gloaming, as we walked to and fro in the
meadow behind the manse; and we decided,
having to make our choice of two evils,
to risk giving him such an opiate as should
carry him over the dreaded interval. We
knew it was a perilous thing to do with one
in his condition, but, as I said before, we could
only take the least of two evils.
“What we dreaded most was his awaking
before the time expired; so I kept watch
beside him. He lay like one dead through the
whole of Tuesday night and Wednesday, and
Wednesday evening. Eight, nine, ten, eleven
o'clock came and passed; twelve. “God be
thanked!' I said, as I stooped over him and
heard he was breathing quietly.
“‘He will do now, I hope, said the doctor,
who had come in just before midnight; ‘you
will stay with him till he wakes?’
“I promised that I would, and in the beautiful
dawn of a summer's morning he opened his eyes
and smiled. He had no recollection then of what
had occurred; he was as weak as an infant, and
when I bade him try to go to sleep again, turned
on his pillow and sank to rest once more.


228 SANDY THE TINKER.
“Worn out with watching, I stepped softly
from the room and passed into the fresh sweet
air. I strolled down to the garden-gate, and
stood looking at the great mountains and the
fair country, and the Deldy wandering like a
silver thread through the green fields below.
“All at once my attention was attracted
by a group of people coming slowly along the
road leading from the hills. I could not at
first see that in their midst something was
being borne on men's shoulders; but when at
last I made this out, I hurried to meet them
and learn what was the matter.
“‘Has there been an accident?' I asked, as
I drew near.
“They stopped, and one man came towards
me.
“‘Ay, he said, ‘the warst accident that
could befa him, puir fella'. He's deid.’
“‘Who is it?' I asked, pressing forward;
and lifting the cloth they had flung over his
face, I saw Sandy the Tinker /
“‘He had been fou' coming home, I tak' it,'
remarked one who stood by ; ‘puir Sandy, and
gaed over the cliff afore he could save himsel'.
We found him just on this side of the Witches'
Caldron, where there's a bonny strip of green
turf, and his cuddy was feeding on the hill-top
with the bit cart behind her.’”


SANDY THE TINKER. 229
There was silence for a minute; then one of
the ladies said softly, “Poor Sandy!”
“And what became of Mr. Cawley?” asked
the other.
“He gave up his parish and went abroad
as a missionary. He is still living.”
“What a most extraordinary story !” I
remarked.
“Yes, I think so,” said the minister. “If
you like to go round by Dendeldy to-morrow,
my son, who now occupies the manse, would
show you the scene of the occurrence.”
The next day we all stood looking at the
“bonny strip of green,” at the frowning
cliffs, and at the Deldy, swollen by recent rains,
rushing on its way.
The youngest of the party went up to the
rock, and knocked upon it loudly with his
Ca.11(e.
“O, don’t do that, pray!” cried both the
ladies, nervously; the spirit of the weird story
still brooded over us.
“What do you think of the coincidence,
Jack?” I inquired of my friend, as we talked
apart from the others.
“Ask me when we get back to Fleet Street,”
he answered.


OLD MRS. JONES.
-5:...:"st----
This could not have been found in his parish,
which was a large one, a prouder or happier
man than Richard Tippens, on the day when he
took possession of the house which had been
tenanted by Doctor Jones.
Never a better fellow drew breath than Mr.
Richard Tippens. A good son, a loving husband,
a fond father, his worst enemy could only say of
him he had two faults—one, a tendency to be
extra generous; the other, a perhaps undue fond-
ness for an extra glass. But, earning money by
the pocketful, as Dick did in those days, when
there were fewer cabs and busses than at pre-
sent, no tramcars, no Metropolitan or daylight
route railway, to be free-handed seemed rather
a virtue than a sin; whilst for a man who had to
be out in all weathers, and the period of whose
meals was as uncertain as the climate, could
scarcely be blamed for yielding to the solici-
tations of sporting or commercial-gent fares, and
his own inclination, in the matter of little “gos”
of rum and half-quarterns of gin, and whisky


OLD MRS. JONES. 23 I
cold without, or with “just a drop of hot water
and one lump of sugar, my dear, as my fingers
is stiff with cold.”
Mr. Tippens was a cheery fellow, with a
jolly, honest, laughing face, merciful to the
cattle he drove, proud of his newly-painted
cab, of his silver-plated harness, of a fresh horse
he had just bought, and—oh ! far, far prouder
of all—of having got the old house which Doctor
Jones lived in, for so many a long and wicked
year, for a mere song in the way of rent.
It was precisely the sort of place he had been
looking out for, he could scarcely remember
how long ; an old-fashioned house—not a
grand old-fashioned house altogether above
their position, but a rambling, ramshackle
building, with a wide staircase, and lots of
cupboards, and plenty of rooms they could
let off to great advantage, and large cellars,
and a paved yard at the back, where were
also stables, and coach-house, and lofts, and
wash-house, and brew-house, and ever so
many other odd little places, telling uncon-
sciously of the time when people, and things,
and ways were different from what they are
now; when wood enough for the whole winter
had to be laid in at once, and bread was
baked at home, and flitches of bacon were
laid in the racks, and such modern innova-


232 OLD MPS. JONES.
tions as tradesmen calling every day for orders,
ladies only spending about thirty minutes
a week in their kitchens, and no mistress's
store-room, were matters still undreamt of.
“It is a splendid house,” Mr. Richard Tippens
joyfully exclaimed, when, opening the door
with his own key, he walked into the premises
with the old creature who was to do the repairs
for him.
“Fit for any gentleman,” capped the person
in question, the accuracy of whose ideas on
any social subject of that sort was indeed open
to doubt, for he had only one definite notion
on earth, and that was beer. His point of
view was the nearest tap, and any road which
led to the desired haven seemed to him filled
with better company than the Row in the
SeaSO11. -
He had been in a yard where Dick Tippens,
then owning no horses of his own, was fain to
work under a cab proprietor. -
“I have known poor old Mickey,” Dick was
wont to say, “for a matter of thirty years, on
and off, you know, and ever since I was as
high as that,” and the great burly fellow
would indicate a height a child of five might
have scoffed at. But Dick did not add how
many a sixpence, and shilling, and half-crown,
and good warm dinner had found their way


OLD MPS. JONES. 233
to old Mickey since he met with the accident
(when he was drunk) which made him for ever
after a dependent on the charity of the rate-
payers, and the liberality of those who could
remember him when he was earning from
“thirty-three to forty bob a week, besides
gettings.” That Mickey, while in receipt of
this princely income, might have put aside a
trifle to help him over that rainy day, induced
by “the cussedest brute that ever lashed out
without a sign of warning,” was an idea which
never seemed to occur either to the various
relieving officers he was under, or the many
friends who “stood treat.”
Neither was any weight attached to the
horse's view of the question. How Michael
himself would have liked his own toilet per-
formed with the aid of a pitchfork, which
was the implement he had taken up, appa-
rently under the impression it was a curry-
comb, nobody inquired. All that his own
public considered, was that Mickey, once the
weekly recipient of “thirty-three to forty bob
and gettings,” which latter item probably
amounted to as much more, had to go on the
parish, and feel thankful for half-a-crowns from
the Board, and such odd jobs as Heaven, more
merciful than the abhorred Board, put in his
way.


234 OLD MRS. JONES.
For the rest he was a drunken, dissolute,
lying, discontented, carneying old vagabond,
who thrived on the kindness and folly of men
like Dick Tippens, who likewise was not laying
by a farthing, but spending such of his super-
fluous cash as did not go in the best of good eat-
ing and drinking and smoking, in the purchase
of useless articles of various kinds, in fine
household linen and damask, in a large stock
of clothes for himself, which he could not
possibly wear out before they grew old-fashioned,
in shawls and dresses for his wife, each and
all destined eventually to find their way to
the pawnbroker as surely and infallibly as
the sparks fly upwards.
For apparently a mere trifle, “just a bite of
food, or a half-pint of beer, or an old pair of cast-
off boots, or a coat you don’t care to be seen
about in any longer yourself, even in the worst
of weather,” thus, “poor old Mikey;” “ or just
whatever you are pleased to give me; or
nothing at all, Mr. Tippens. I'll make the
place clean and sweet for you. There is
little here I can’t do, except maybe the roof
and a bit of bricklaying, that needs standing
on a high ladder, or the pipes mending, or the
gutter seeing to; but leave that all to me, plenty
will be glad to earn a shilling or two, and I know
where to go to look for them ; don't you


OLD MRS. JONES. 235
trouble yourself at all. Which had we best
make a start with, the house, dye think, or the
yard?”
Mr. Tippens thought the house. “Once he
was on the premises he could see to a bit of the
loft and stables himself, and give Mike a
helping hand; and his wife was all agog to
get in, and put the place to rights while the
fine weather lasted ; and he had some fresh
lodgers now, only waiting till he could take
them in; and the children, poor things, were
wild at the thought of the yard and the out-
buildings.”
“And fine children they are too,” answered
the worthy Michael; “but there, what would
hinder them; you're not an ill-favoured man
yourself, Mr. Tippens, and I mind the time
when all the girls were setting their caps at
you, and the like of your wife for beauty
never stepped. The very sight of her seems
to do my old eyes good, like the sunshine on
a bright May morning. She always minds me
somehow of primroses and violets and blue
bells, and the scent of the wall-flowers that
used to grow along on the low wall of my
father's garden down in Surrey,” and as he
uttered these poetical similes, Michael's watery
eyes wistfully followed the movements of Mr.
Tippens’ right hand while it fumbled in his


OLD MRS. JONES. 237
was produced by beer, or gin, or whitewash,
or the lead in the paint, did not signify to
her ; even the praise of her children only
elicited the answer that they were “well
enough,” and a more elaborate tribute to
her own charms failed to soften the asperity
with which she told him to “hold his tongue.”
“I expect that Mickey has taken you in
nicely, Dick,” she said to her husband, that
night.
“Oh ! it hasn’t cost me so much,” answered
Mr. Tippens, easily; “there was a whole lot of
things to do.”
As indeed he found when the rainy months
and the snow came, and the water poured
from the spouts, all of which leaked, and the
wet soaked through the broken tiles that had
never been replaced; and it was found neces-
sary to open all the drains.
Long before winter arrived, however, Mrs.
Tippens discovered that not a lock or bolt
in the house worked properly; that the paint
had only been smeared on the woodwork;
that the whole of the repairs, in fact, had
consisted in further dilapidation of the coats
of Mr. Mike's stomach; and that almost all the
money paid by her husband for “labour,”
“material,” “extra help,” “hire of ladders,”
“use of pulley,” and so forth, had been spent


238 OLD MRS. JONES.
over the counter of the “Guy Faux” tavern,
situated round a near and convenient corner.
Meeting Mike one day, her just indignation
found utterance, and, with feminine frankness,
she reproached him for having deceived a man
who had been so kind to him as her husband.
Mrs. Tippens was, in no sense of the word, a
shrew, but she could upon occasion speak out
her mind, and on this occasion she did speak
it very plainly.
Mike never attempted to deny the charge,
he only tried to turn it into a victory by a
strategetical movement likely to divert her
attention.
“What was the use,” asked the hoary sinner,
“of spending good money fitting a house up
like a palace I knew you would never be able
to live in.”
“What would hinder us living in it?” re-
torted Mrs. Tippens, more in the way of
comment than enquiry.
“What would hinder you?—why old Mrs.
Jones, to be sure; she'll never let anybody
live in the house till her bones are dug up
out of the hole where her husband buried
her.”
“Oh! don’t talk to me of your Mrs. Joneses,”
exclaimed Mrs. Tippens, to whom the name was
evidently not new. “At any rate, I never did


OLD MRS. JONES. 239
any harm to the woman—never saw her,
to my knowledge, so it's not likely she would
come troubling me.”
“She troubles everybody that tries to live
in the house you're so set up with. Why, the
last people did not stop a fortnight. It's well
known she walks the place over, from the
second floor down; and, if you take my advice,
you won't go into the back-cellar alone after
night.”


240 OLD MRS. JONES.
CHAPTER II.
If was Sunday evening, Mr. Tippens sat on one
side of the fire and his wife on the other.
They had partaken of tea, and it was not yet
quite time for supper; the children were abed,
three of them in a little room at the end of the
passage Doctor Jones had used as a surgery,
while the baby was, for a wonder, fast asleep in its
cradle, which stood in a dark corner behind Mrs.
Tippens chair. The horses had long been fed
and littered down. Mr. Tippens always took a
look at them last thing, but last thing would not
be yet for an hour or more. The house was as
quiet as the grave, and through the smoke caused
by his pipe Richard Tippens, with a delightful
sense of well-being, and doing, and feeling,
dreamily regarded his wife, who was certainly
an extremely pretty woman, possessing further
the reputation of being an extraordinarily good
manager; neat in her own person, she always
kept her children clean and tidy and well-
dressed; her rooms were regularly swept and
scrubbed, and hearthstoned and blackleaded; she
mended her husband's clothes, and sewed on


OLD MPS. JONES. 24 I
his buttons, and with the help of a woman
who came in to “chair,” as it is generally
called, did the family washing and the family
ironing ; she was a very fair cook, not in the
least lazy—quite the contrary, indeed—and yet,
if I may venture to say so, in the teeth of
public opinion, which always favours women
of her type, I do not think she was a good
manager, for she spent up to the hilt of her
income, whatever that might be. She was
always considering how to increase her
“gettings,” but she never gave a thought as
to how she might save them.
Her husband gave her a liberal allowance,
and brought home from outlying regions, where
he saw such articles marked up cheap, fowls,
fish, necks of mutton, vegetables, and other
welcome helps to housekeeping. She had a
house full of regularly paying lodgers, who
found their own latch-keys, and required no
attendance. She took in needlework, at which,
as she got it by favour, she was able to
make a considerable amount of money—and
yet, if she had told the truth to her own
heart, she would have said, “We are not one
bit better off than we were when Dick only
gave me a pound certain every week, and paid
the rent.
It is a pity someone, thoroughly up in
R


242 OLD MRS. JONES.
financial questions, does not inform us why un-
certain incomes lead almost invariably to ex-
travagant living.
Your true economist, your excellent manager,
your incomparable financier, is a labourer at a
given weekly wage, a clerk on starvation salary,
the lady left with the poorest of limited incomes.
The moment “gettings,” in any shape, enter into
the question economy retires, worsted, from the
contest. “You have got so much to-day, you
may get so much more to-morrow,” that is the
reasoning. Now, why cannot the “gettings” be
put aside? Why cannot they be left like an egg
in the nest for more to be laid? We know of
course, they never are; but why is it?
Among my own somewhat varied acquaint-
ances, I number, at this moment of writing,
two persons—one, a lady whose income, all told,
does not reach a hundred a-year; on this
amount she pays the rent of her rooms, she
lives, she dresses; she is not young, and her
health requires some few luxuries; yet she is
never in debt, and she has always a trifle to
spare for those who may be sick or sorry. The
other is a youth who I do not think has yet
counted eighteen summers; his health is per-
fect, his rank does not necessitate other than
the most moderate expenditure for a bed; his
hat covers his family; when he visits, his


OLD MRS. JONES. 243
toilet is easily and perfectly made with a
clean collar and a fancy tie; his weekly in-
come has been from thirty to five-and-thirty
shillings a-week and “gettings;” and yet,
lately, when he had been four days out of
work, with the certainty of getting into work
again on the next day but one, he had to
pawn his watch !
Most certainly political economists of the
age now coming towards us will find few more
difficult questions to deal with than this of
“gettings.” Were an angel to descend from
Heaven to-night and tell Mrs. Tippens what
I know, that “gettings” had been the curse of
herself, her husband, and her children, she
would not believe him ; so it would be worse
than folly for me to speak—even if not cruel
impertinence—now the inevitable end has come
—the parish ; the philanthropic society, the
ever-decreasing bounty for which she is able
to make interest; such casual help as she can
get, and such work as she is able to obtain.
But no one that evening, looking at her and
her husband, as they sat beside the fire; at the
comfortable, well-furnished room, the bright
blaze, the clean-swept hearth, could possibly
have thought evil days were looming in the
distance for both husband and wife. He, the
picture of health and strength; she, a slight,
R 2


244 OLD MRS. JONES.
and still apparently quite young woman, with a
refined style of beauty, and a cast of features
altogether unusual in her rank. When her
voice was not upraised and her temper tried,
both of which had been the case during her
encounter with that arch-hypocrite Mike, her
mode of speaking accorded with the pure and
delicate lines of her countenance. In truth,
she had been well brought up, and from her
youth knew how, with propriety, to address ladies
—real ladies, as she was sometimes almost too
careful to add ; and since her marriage she
had kept herself to herself; and in her own
home her children, her relations, and her
husband, found all the interest and society she
required.
“Dick,” she said, after they had sat in silence
for some little time.
“I’m here, Luce,”
it, my girl?”
“You never told me this house was haunted.”
“I told you people said it was haunted,”
he answered, “and you laughed at the idea;
because, as you wisely remarked, “when once
people are buried they’ve done with this
world, sure-ly.’”
“But that's just what we don't know—
whether old Mrs. Jones was ever buried or
not.”
he answered ; “what is


OLD MRS. JONES. 245
“We don’t know whether she is dead or
not, for that matter.”
“Then if she's not dead, where can she be?”
“And if Doctor Jones isn’t dead, where can
he be?” retorted Mr. Tippens.
“There's dreadful things said about this
house, Dick.”
“Well, you just turn a deaf ear to them,
and they won't break your night's rest.
What's Doctor or Mrs. Jones to us? He was
a bad man, we know; and she, if all accounts
may be trusted, was a bit of a shrew, and held
a tight grip of the money, which he married
her for. He did not take her for her good
looks, I'm sure; for a plainer, more ordinary
woman you couldn’t have met in a day's walk
in London. She was more like a witch than
anything else—a little bit of a woman, with
eyes like black beads, and a face the colour
of mahogany; but there-—I’ve described her
before, Luce, and I think we might find some-
thing pleasanter to talk about now.”
“But they say, Dick—they do, indeed—she
walks the house, and 22
“Pack of rubbish,” interrupted Mr. Tippens,
warmly; “who says it—at least, who says it
to you?”
“Why, mostly everybody—the baker, and
the bootmaker down the street, and Mike—-”


246 OLD MRS. JONES.
“She didn't hinder him staying in the house,
at any rate,” commented Dick.
“Well, Mr. Mowder lived here, you know.”
“And he was turned out because he wouldn't
pay a farthing of rent.
“He says,” persisted Mrs. Tippens, resolutely;
“there was always like a cold air in the
passage.”
“You can’t expect the hall to feel exactly
sultry with those great underground kitchens
and cellars. I’ve a mind to put a few spikes
in the door, and so shut the whole of those
caverns off the rest of the house.”
“But then, Dick dear, what should we and
our lodgers do about coals?”
“Aye, there you go,” observed Dick dear.
“Every woman's alike; the moment a man
makes a suggestion, she's sure to raise some
difficulty. Then I won't nail up the door;
will that meet your views, Mrs. Tippens?”
“Now, Dick, don’t let us quarrel,” entreated
his better half; “there was enough of quarrel-
ing here, if all accounts be true, in the
Joneses time, without our beginning the same
game, and 33
He did not let her finish the sentence, he
took his pipe out of his mouth, and drew
his chair nearer to where she sat, and put
his arm round her waist, and drew her head


248 OLD MRS. JONES.
ground regions Mr. Tippens well described as
CavernS.
She had provided a nice little meal, and she
looked pretty and graceful as she flitted back-
wards and forwards, fetching one dish and then
another. -
“Why, girl, this is a supper fit for the Lord
Mayor,” said Mr. Tippens, looking approvingly
at the contents of the table; “I don’t think the
Queen herself –— ”
What he was going to say concerning Victoria
by the Grace of God will never now be known,
for when he arrived at this point in his sentence
there echoed through the silent house a shriek,
which brought both husband and wife to their
feet, followed by a thud, as of something heavy
falling to the ground.
“Lord bless and save us!” exclaimed Mr.
Tippens, and seizing a light he rushed out into
the passage, followed by his wife
It was a strangely built house; there were only
six steps to the first landing, where was a
cupboard in the wall which Mrs. Pendell used
as a sort of pantry; half-way down this land-
ing there were three steps more, and then the
flight that led direct to the rooms where the
Pendells lived.
As Dick Tippens and his wife ran up the half-
dozen steps leading from the hall, a posse of


OLD MRS. JONES. 249
people came hurrying pell-mell from the upper
part of the house. “What is it? What has
happened? Is it thieves? Is the house on fire?”
No, the house was not on fire, neither had
thieves set themselves at the unprofitable task
of effecting an entry; it was only that on the
landing Mrs. Pendell lay in the deadest faint
woman ever fell into, a large dish she had
evidently just taken out of the cupboard
smashed to atoms beside her, and the remnants
of the joint the family had operated upon in
the middle of the day a few steps down, where
it had rolled when she dropped the dish.
Everything possible and impossible the house
contained was brought to revive Mrs. Pendell;
everybody was talking at once, and each indi-
vidual had some pet theory to account for
the phenomenon.
“I told her she was a overdoing of it,” said
her husband, a slow, florid, phlegmatic, pig-
headed sort of man. “Didn't I, Bill? Didn't I
say to her just on this side Whitechapel Church,
you’ve been a overdoing it, Mary, you'll have
a turn of them spasms to-morrow?”
Meantime, the subject of these remarks
had been carried into the inner chamber and
laid on her bed, where every recognised ex-
perimental, and favourite personal expedient was
tried in order to restore her to consciousness;


250 OLD MRS. JONES.
she was “poor deared,” her dress was unfastened
and her stays loosened, smelling salts of every
degree of strength were held to her nostrils,
burnt feathers thrust almost up her nose, her
hands slapped, cold water dabbed on her fore-
head, an attempt made to get some brandy
down her throat, with various other ingenious
efforts at torture, which almost drove Mrs.
Tippens, who was in the main a very sensible
woman, distracted.
“If you'd only leave her to me and Susie,”
she said; “there's not a breath of air in the
room, with so many standing about the bed
and the doorway. She'll be right enough after
a little, if you’ll only not crowd about her,
and let me open the windows.”
“She's right,” observed Mr. Pendell, from
the doorway. “Come along, all of you, Mrs.
Tippens knows what's what.”
Mrs. Pendell, however, was so long in justi-
fying this flattering eulogy in Mrs. Tippens's
favour, that Susie, the sister, who had come up
to see her, was just asking if it would not
be better to send Bob for the nearest doctor,
when Mrs. Tippens, raising her hand to
enforce silence, said—
“H-sh—she's coming to, now.”
There was a pause, a pin might have been
heard drop, so silent and eager and expectant


OLD MRS. JONES. 25 I
were the two watchers; then Mrs. Pendell,
recovering, opened her eyes a very little, and
Mrs. Tippens, holding her left hand, and softly
rubbing it, said,
“Don’t be frightened, dear, it's only me.”
“What is it? Where am I?” murmured
Mrs. Pendell, adding suddenly, with a gesture
of the extremest terror, “Oh ! I remember.
Keep her away from me, Mrs. Tippens ! Mrs.
Tippens, won’t you keep her away — that
dreadful woman, you know?”
“She's a bit light-headed,” said her sister;
“I’m sure Bob had better go for the doctor.”
“I don’t think there's any need,” answered
Mrs. Tippens, quietly enough, though her very
heart seemed to stand still at the words.
“There's nobody shall come near you, dear,
but Susie and me. Don’t be looking about
the room that way—indeed, there's no one
here but your sister and myself.”
“She has long grey hair, streaming over
her shoulders. Oh the wickedest face I ever
did see. I know her well, don’t you, Mrs.
Tippens ?”
“Yes, yes, dear; but never mind her now ;
keep yourself quiet.”
“She must be the smallest woman in the
world,” this after a moment's silence; “when I
turned from the cupboard I felt like a rush of


252 OLD MRS. JONES.
cold air, and then she stood on the top step
but one.”
“I think she would be the better for
some sort of quieting draught,” remarked
Mrs. Tippens, sotto voce, to Susan Hay—and it
is no disparagement of a courageous woman's
courage to say, after Susie left the room she
looked fearfully around, while Mrs. Pendell
rambled on about the dreadful sight which had
struck her down like one dead.
“I have seen people in their coffins, who
didn’t look half so death-like,” she whis-
pered; “she was that dark, and her face and
her eyes were so fierce, and her arms so
shrivelled, and her hands so like claws
going to make a clutch at me; and she had
a red mark round her throat, as if she had
been wearing a necklace too tight.”
“Did she say anything to you?” Mrs.
Tippens forced herself to ask.
“No; she was just going to speak when
I screamed out with horror. Shall I ever for-
get her ?—ever—ever !” and she buried her
head despairingly in the pillow.
“Well, Polly, lass, how do you find
yourself now?” said Mr. Pendell, coming
into the room at this juncture, and causing
a welcome diversion at least to Mrs. Tippens'
fancy. “You’re getting all right now, aren't


OLD MRS. JONES. 253
you? Ah ! I felt afraid what was coming;
did I say to you, or did I not, on this side
of Whitechapel church, “You’ve been a over-
doing of it, Mary; you'll have a turn of them
spasms to-morrow?”
For answer Mary only put her hand in her
husband's and lay strangely still and quiet.
“Bob has gone for the doctor,” proceeded
Mr. Pendell, nodding across at Mrs. Tippens.
In replying, Mrs. Tippens looked at the
patient and then nodded back at him.
Before morning broke Mrs. Pendell had
brought a child prematurely into the world.
That she lived and the baby lived the doctor
assured Mr. Pendell was owing entirely to
Mrs. Tippens’ extraordinary devotion and excel-
lent nursing; and Mr. Pendell declared solemnly
to Mrs. Tippens he would never forget her good-
ness—“night or day, she had only to say what
she wanted, and he would be quite at her
service”—a promise he found it convenient to
forget when evil days fell upon Dick and his
wife.
While these events and exchanges of amenities
were passing, there happened a curious experi-
ence to Mrs. Tippens one night while she was
off duty.
Her husband was out on “a late job,” and
had told her not to sit up for him; and Mrs.


254 OLD MRS. JONES.
Tippens having undressed and said her prayers,
and placed a box of matches where she could
instantly lay hand upon it, was about to
blow out the candle and step into bed, when
from the little room at the end of the passage,
there came a chorus of “Mother! MOTHER!
MOTHER!” which caused her, without making
any addition to her toilet beyond instinctively
thrusting her bare feet into a pair of her
husband's slippers, to snatch up the candle
and rush to the place where her children
slept.
“Now then, what is all this noise about !” she
asked, seeing they were every one alive and each
sitting bolt upright in bed. Theoretically Mrs.
Tippens was nothing if not a disciplinarian, but
the young ones twisted her round their little
fingers for all that, “You’ll bring all the lodgers
down; I have a great mind to give each of you
a good whipping.”
“There was a woman in the room, mamma !”
said Mrs. Tippens's second-born.
“And she came and touched me,” added the
youngest of the trio.
“Yes, that she did, I see her,” exclaimed the
eldest son; “a little woman with hair hanging
about her like yours, only grey and not so long,
and with eyes as black as Lucy's new doll's, the
one Mr. Pendell gave her, and as dark as that


OLD MRS. JONES. 255
man with the white turban we saw in the Strand,
and—”
“Hold your tongue this instant, and never let
me hear your nonsense again,” interrupted Mrs.
Tippens, angrily. “You had too much pudding
for supper, that's what the matter is with you,
and you got the nightmare and woke up
thinking you saw all sorts of things.”
“But we couldn't all have had nightmares,”
persisted Dick, who was a sturdy lad, and his
father's pride and hope; “I saw her go up to
Effie and lay her hand on her.”
“I was cold, too,” supplemented the child.
“And I saw her as well,” capped Lucy, fear-
ful of lagging behind the others in this little
matter of renown and glory.
“You are very naughty children,” answered
Mrs. Tippens, in a superior sort of tone; then,
descending to details, “it is so very likely,
Dicky, you could see anyone in the dark.”
“Oh, but she brought a light with her, a sort
of a lamp.”
At this point Mrs. Tippens collapsed. If old
Mrs. Jones were able, not merely to go wandering
about a house for which she paid no rent or
taxes, but also to find her own light, what other
feat might that lady not be expected to perform P
“Now, never let me hear any more of such
folly,” she said, however, valiantly, upon the


256 OLD MRS. JONES.
principle that most noise is to be got out of an
empty barrel; “I’ll turn the key in the door,
and then you'll know nobody can get in.”
“No, leave the key inside, and I'll lock
the door, and then, if she comes again, I'll
holloa.”
“You’d better not,” retorted his mother,
so sharply that Dick, discomfited, wrapped
the bedclothes about his head, and twisting
himself up like a hedgehog, lay, repeating
in a sort of rhyme, the description of the
woman who had broken in upon his rest.
That Mrs. Tippens did not sleep much
during the course of the night—no, not even
when her husband was snoring by her side,
and the children had long sunk into slumber–
will be readily imagined. *


OLD MRS. JONES. 257
CHAPTER III.
EW things had ever caused more excitement
in a neighbourhood than the disappear-
ance of Doctor and Mrs. Jones. Here to-day
and gone to-morrow; gone, without beat of
drum or sound of fife ; gone, without the
excitement of furniture moving, or cab laden
with luggage, or funereal pomp and cere-
mony; even a one-horse hearse, without
plumes or mutes, or decorous wands, or long
black cloaks, or hat-bands, or mourning coaches
to follow, would have been better than this
silent, mysterious flitting.
If the earth had suddenly opened and
swallowed up husband and wife they could
not have vanished more utterly. There was
the house they had lived in, but where were
they?
What secret did that one night hold which all
the intelligence of the whole parish failed to eluci-
date. Where was he P What was more to the
point, where was she? Upon this last question
public opinion at length became unanimous.
She was buried in the cellars. Her husband had


258 OLD MRS. JONES.
* -- ~~~~--------- – *- -
murdered her—so it was finally decided—and
after killing the “poor dear,” had disposed
of her remains in the manner indicated. That
an industrious course of digging and grubbing
brought no body or bones to light proved
nothing but that “the doctor was a deep one,”
to quote the observations of local wiseacres.
“He used her cruel in her lifetime,” said one.
“Ay, that he did,” capped another. “And
he wouldn't give her the chance of Christian
burial. She's lying hidden away in some dark
corner; no wonder the creature can’t rest
there. No ; I wouldn't sleep a night in that
house, not if you counted me down a hundred
pounds in golden sovereigns.”
“Neither would I, was it ever so.”
“For there's not a doubt she walks.”
“Of course she does. Didn't my own cousin,
when she was coming along the passage one
summer's night, feel like an icy wind at the
nape of her neck, and as if a cold hand
was laid flat on her shoulder ? and she always
says she knows if she had looked round,
she'd have seen the old woman with her grey
hair—”
“That he used to drag her about by—”
“Streaming down her back, and her eyes,
filled with hunger and ill-treatment, staring
through the darkness.”


OLD MRS. JONES. 259
“The house ought to be pulled to the
ground—that's what ought to be done with
it—”
“And not one stone left on another—”
“And those cellars thoroughly examined.”
“It's my belief there's some secret place in
them that hasn’t been found out yet.”
“Very likely. You know it is reported there
used to be a passage big enough for a man
to creep along from there to the Thames.”
“Bless and save us—maybe he has put her
in the river.”
“No, no; though he was wicked enough
for that or anything else, she's in the house
somewhere right enough, and if she could
speak she would say so.”
“I Wonder where he is ?” -
“Lord knows. Enjoying himself, most likely,
beyond the seas.”
“I suppose he was about the worst man
you ever knew.”
“I suppose he was about the worst man
anybody ever knew.”
“And the cleverest.”
“Aye, he had brains to do anything, but
they all turned to wickedness.”
It often happens that a man obtains a
reputation for talent in his own immediate
circle on very slight and insufficient grounds;
s 2


26o OLD MRS. JONES.
but in the case of Dr. Jones, popular rumour
did not exaggerate the missing gentleman's
abilities.
He was very clever, indeed. He was so
clever he might have risen to almost any
height in his profession, had he not been at
once lazy and self-indulgent. His father having
lived and practised before, he succeeded to a
prosperous business and a wide connection.
When he first started on his own account, all the
old houses in the street where he lived, and all
the old houses in many many other streets and
squares and terraces and groves near at hand,
were inhabited by well-to-do City people, by
widows amply dowered, by men who had
made their money in trade and were now
living in affluent retirement.
It was a capital parish for a doctor to
settle in ; none of your new neighbourhoods,
tenanted by mere birds of passage; once a
medical man got a patient he had a chance
of keeping him for many years. There were
names on Dr. Jones' books of people and
families who had been physicked by the
Jones for more than half a century. Never a
man began life under more auspicious circum-
Stances.
He had the medical ball at his feet. Old
ladies adored him, because he ordered them


OLD MRS. JONES. 261
exactly what he knew they liked in the way
of eating; old gentlemen were quite sure he
understood their complaints, when he declared
“a few glasses of sound wine could hurt no
one.” He met the best physicians and surgeons
in consultation, and people agreed if any man
could put a person on his legs again, that
man was Dr. Jones.
But as time went on, and Dr. Jones waxed
more prosperous and less careful, it was found
that, spite of his many admirable virtues, he
had grave faults. In no single respect did
his moral character attain to that high standard
which a doctor, above all other men, ought to
try to reach. Things were whispered about him
which mothers felt could not be spoken of
before the younger members of the family;
things indeed, which were, even among matrons,
mentioned with chairs drawn close together,
and bated breath and much uplifting of eyes
and hands.
Fact is, the decency and restraint of re-
spectable English society had become intolerable
to the successful practitioner. For a long time
he contented himself with sowing his bad
wild oats at a distance from his dwelling—
drinking, gambling, and leading the loosest of
lives in the many disreputable haunts to be
found on the north side of the Thames, in-


264 OLD MRS. JONES.
so report said, adding, that ere long wonder-
ful changes might be looked upon in the old
house.
It was swept and garnished at any rate,
the drawing-room smartened up, a brougham
purchased, the latest and most utterly ob-
jectionable housekeeper dispatched about her
business, whatever it might be, two respect-
able servants engaged, a man hired to look
after the horse, answer the door, and prove
a general credit to the street. Doctor Jones
himself left off smoking pipes and took to cigars
instead; he eschewed the local public houses,
foreswore billiards, all packs of cards were
cleared out of the dwelling; he washed, he
shaved; he wore a coat instead of a dressing-
gown, and he was to be found, by such patients
as desired to see him, before twelve o'clock,
till which time he had of late been in the habit
of taking his rest in bed.
Things were looking up ; the Mrs. Jones who
was to be had, people felt, already achieved
wonders; she was a credit to her sex; ladies
admitted they could not possibly ever have the
husband again as a medical man, but they
might once more receive him as an acquaintance.
Prodigals are always interesting, perhaps because
no one ever really believes they will reform,
and Doctor Jones was a specially delightful


OLD MRS. JONES. 265
prodigal—so clever, so handsome, so reckless, sc
wicked, so extravagant.
He had studied at one time at a German
University, and it had somehow been ascer-
tained that no wilder spirit ever troubled the
peace of the quaint old town that lay under the
shadow of the frowning castle.
His world which, a short time previously,
failed to find words strong enough to express
its reprobation of his conduct, now began to
make excuses for him. Perhaps his faults had
been exaggerated, possibly there was only a
modicum of truth in the reports which had
been spread abroad concerning his doings:
clever men always make enemies, the tattle of
the lower orders could not be exactly depended
upon ; and in fine, to put the matter in a
nutshell, it was at length unanimously decided
to call on Mrs. Jones when she returned from
the honeymoon.
There was something after these visits for
gossips to talk about! What countrywoman
could she be?—where had he met her?—what
was she?—who was she P—what had she been P
Years seem to stretch between her and the
doctor—on the wrong side, of course.
She was little, she was old, she was plain,
she was ignorant, and she was most furiously
jealous. She could not endure her husband to


266 OLD MRS. JONES.
look at or speak to any other woman. Even the
elderly unmarried daughter of her mother, who
was a widow, who would have liked Seraphina
to undertake the doctor's case, even this in-
nocent ewe lamb seemed unbearable to the
bride.
No use now to think of pleasant little parties,
to which Mrs. Jones and her reformed husband
might be bidden. No card-tables, no carpet-
dances, no snug dinners, no safe and harmless
social intercourse, which it had been hoped
might prove to the repentant doctor as refresh-
ing and non-intoxicating as a course of milk,
lemonade, and cocoa to the once infuriated
drunkard.
On the whole, perhaps, the matrons, in their
hearts, thought Mrs. Jones' virtues worse than
her husband's vices; tacitly it was agreed not to
force aquaintanceship on her. Possibly she had
her own set of friends, and it was felt it would
be most undesirable to introduce foreigners of
no respectable colour into the bosom of British
families who had made their money in the City,
as everybody knew; and who piqued them-
selves upon the strictness of their morals, the
length of their purses, and the strength of their
prejudices.
One gentleman, whose own face was as rosy
as a peony, declared, with a mild asseveration,


268 OLD MRS. JONES.
CHAPTER IV.
T the end of little more than three years
from the date of his marriage, it might
have been truly said of Doctor Jones that his
last state was worse than his first. How many
demons eventually took up their habitation
within him it would be impossible to say; but
the doings of the Jones' household, more parti-
cularly the doings of its master, became a terror
and reproach to the neighbourhood.
How the case really stood no one ever exactly
knew ; all sorts of rumours and stories passed
from mouth to mouth. She would not give him
a shilling of her money, so gossip averred. He
had stood over her with a cutting whip to
compel her to sign papers, and then she would
not; a mode of proceeding on the part of
Doctor Jones to practice before witnesses, which
was, to say the least of the matter, unlikely.
Popular report asserted he starved her; but as
she generally answered the street-door herself,
was free to walk in and out if she pleased,
and could have told any tradesmen to brin
her anything she fancied, this was evidently a


OLD MRS. JONES. 269
libel. At one time an idea got abroad that the
whole tale of her fortune had been a myth;
that the Doctor had been taken in, and that
there were dreadful quarrels between them in
consequence; but the boastings of various
servants who declared they had seen her with
“rolls on rolls” of bank-notes and with such
diamonds and rubies as the “Queen of Sheba or
Solomon himself could have had nothing more
splendid,” negatived the truth of this statement.
Money or no money, however, the Jones'
were a miserable couple. Mrs. Jones could not
and would not endure a female servant about
the house; as fast as they were engaged they
went, a fortnight was a long time for any woman,
young or old, to stop in the situation, and so ere
long the house acquired that look of dirt and
neglect some houses seem especially able to
assume at the shortest notice. Little more than
three years married and already the grass grow-
ing between the stones in the stable yard
was nearly a foot high. The high-stepping horse
had long been sold, and the brougham also; the
new piano never opened, followed suit; and
about the same time Doctor Jones, giving up all
idea of reformation and practice, and aban-
doning the rôle of a repentant prodigal, returned
to his swine and his husks on the Middlesex side
of the river; for he could not enjoy even such


OLD MRS. JONES. 271
dinners,” said Mrs. Jones, in answer to a feeble
remonstrance from the crone who came in daily
to “put the place a bit to rights,” a woman so
old, so wrinkled, so ugly, so dirty and so shabby
that even Doctor Jones, his wife felt, was unlikely
to chuck her under the chin, or exchange with
her repartees more remarkable for wit than
refinement. Apprised in due time of the fare
he might expect at home, the once again un-
reformed prodigal announced his intention of
accepting an invitation he said he had received
to dine at a friend's house on Christmas Day.
Mrs. Jones tried hard to ascertain where this
friend lived, but in vain, and still firm to her
intention of providing no feast, even for herself,
she told Mrs. Jubb, the charwoman, to bring in
the tea tray and the kettle, and then to go.
About the events of that day and evening and
the following morning Mrs. Jubb had afterwards
much to tell, and she told it.
“As I come up from the kitchen,” she was
wont to observe, “ and an awful kitchen that was
too, full of black-beedles and slugs—just as I got
on the top of the stairs, I saw the master, with
his thick coat on, brushing his hat. He put it
on and he took his umbrella, and he opened the
door and slammed it after him, and that was the
last I ever see of Doctor Jones. I took the
tea-things into the drawing-room, and set the


272 OLD MRS. JONES.
Kettle on the hob, and I asked Mrs. Jones if she
was sure I could not do anything else before I
Went.”
“She said, “Quite sure, Mrs. Jubb, good
evening.’
“I had a sort of feeling on me, I did not like to
leave her, though I knew John's children would
be crying for me at home; and so I made believe
to be putting the cup and saucer and plate nearer
to her hand, and she looked round in her quick
way, and asked sharp, as if I had angered her:
“‘Didn't you hear me say, “good evening,'
Mrs. Jubb. You can go.”
“So I went, and that was the last I ever saw
of her. Goodness only knows where they both
went to. It was not the next day, but the next
day but one, the police got into the house
through a window at the back that was left
half an inch open (for I went down to the
station, and told the inspector I was sure as sure
murder had been done, for I could not make
anybody hear, and the gas was burning, and the
cat, poor thing, mewing in the area, and not
another sign of life about the place); and there
they found the tray just as I’d left it, and the
fire out and the kettle on the hob, and high or
low, in garret or cellar, not a trace of Doctor or
Mrs. Jones.”
There was nothing which gratified Mrs. Jubb's


274 OLD MRS. JONES.
“You don't know what you are talking
about, Jim,” retorted Mrs. Jubb.
“Well, it was a queer start any way,” returned
the undaunted Jim; “the Kilkenny cats left their
tails behind them, but the Doctor and his wife
took away every bit of their bodies—”
“And left clothes, and furniture, and bedding,
and china, and plate, and linen, and all, just as if
they had walked out of the house to spend a day
at a friend’s.” -
Which statement was, indeed, literally true ;
when the police entered the house they found
no corpse, no confusion, no symptom of murder
or premeditated departure. Nothing seemed
to have been removed except the master and
mistress, who had not taken with them even the
typical “comb and toothbrush.”
They were gone. Doctor Jones' creditors
drew their own conclusions; the wealthy and
respectable inhabitants did not know what to
believe or think; the police felt disposed to
consider the whole affair a make-up between
the doctor and his wife; the general public, as
usual, were not to be convinced by argument,
or confounded : by facts, they preferred to
believe old Mrs. Jones had been murdered and
her body what they called “put away,” some-
where about the premises. Shortly after there
followed a rumour of hidden treasure, then


OLD MRS. JONES. 275
it was known for certain that the house was
haunted, and, further, that no one who tried
to live in it, but was visited by some misfor-
tune.
When the wind howled outside her dwelling,
and shook the casements, and whistled through
the key-holes, and the rain beat against the
windows with a noise like slapping with an open
hand, it was a dear delight to gossips to gather
round Mrs. Jubb's fire, to which most who came
contributed a billet and hear the whole story
again, with additions of what had happened
to those venturesome enough to try conclusions
with old Mrs. Jones, out of the flesh.
“She was an awful woman to have much say
to when living,” said Mrs. Jubb ; “dead, she'll
be a thousand times worse.”
“I wonder what she wants wandering about
the old house,” said the irrepressible Jim ; “if all
accounts are true, she was none so happy in
it.”
“Ah, she knows that best herself, and she's
not going to tell,” returned Mrs. Jubb, “I
wouldn't like to see her, that's all.”


OLD MRS. JONES. 277
“But Dick,” remonstrated Mrs. Tippens, “you
know it is said that nobody thrives who stops
here. There was old Mrs. Smith broke her leg in
two places, and Mrs. Curtiss's child was run over
in the street; and Mr. Perks, that was so
respected, fell to robbing his employer, and is
in jail now for taking more than a hundred
pounds. And John Coombe turned teetotaller,
and took to beating his wife—and—”
Mr. Tippens laughed outright. “Make your
mind easy, Luce,” he said; “I’m not likely either
to turn teetotaller or take to beating you, lass;
and as for the children, if you don’t like them
sleeping out of your sight, bring them in here
till you get some of these notions blown off
your mind; and when the days draw out a
little, you and they shall have a week at
the seaside, and you'll get so strong and well,
you’ll laugh at ghosts, and make quite a joke of
old Mrs. Jones.”
Poor Mrs. Tippens! She only wished her
lodgers could see the joke as well, for they were
always going; except one old lady in the top
floor, who was blind and slightly deaf not a
soul stopped any time with her.
“I don’t know how it is,” she said to them,
“for I have never seen anything in the house my-
self; whereupon she was told “she was fortunate,
or reminded “there were none so blind as those


OLD MRS. JONES. - 279
Doctor Jones's former residence, as Mr.
Tippens declared, “in the best of health and
spirits.”
It was not long, however, after their return
before Mrs. Tippens again began to feel her
nerves troubling her. She did not say any-
thing to her husband about the matter, but
she mentioned to a few friends she had
a “sort of weight on her,” as if there was
“something wrong, she did not know what,”
and “a fluttering round her heart,” and “a
weakness in her limbs,” and “a creeping sen-
sation at the back of her neck, when she came
along the passage, as though, on the warmest
day a chill, clammy hand was laid there,”
after which lucid description of symptoms, the
whole question of old Mrs. Jones was again
thoroughly gone into ; the statements of all
the lodgers repeated in extenso, and the gossip
current in the neighbourhood retailed for the
twentieth time.
Small marvel that when, after these conver-
sations, almost exhaustive as they were, of the
Jones topic, Mrs. Tippens, returning to her house,
felt a “waft of raw air ’’ meet her the moment
she opened the street door, and something
“brush along the hall after her,” as she passed
into the sitting-room. She was braver than
most women, and would, had she seen any-


28o OLD MARS. JONES.
thing tangible, have tried to solve the enigma.
But this pursuit by a shadow, this terror of the
unseen, the feeling that there was a presence
in the room with her which yet eluded her
sight, began to prey both on her mind and body.
She longed to cry out, “Take me away from
this evil house or I shall die;” but when Dick
entered, his honest face radiant with smiles,
his tongue ready to tell of the gentlemen who
had hired him to drive them to Chiswick, and
given him about four times his proper fare,
and some present in his hands for “Luce, old
girl,” the words died away on her lips, and
she could only thank Dick for thinking so
constantly about her, and hang round his neck
with a fervour Mr. Tippens was not accustomed
to from a somewhat undemonstrative wife.
“Who do you think I have had a letter
from ?” he asked one morning in the early sum-
mer, as he came in to breakfast, after a stroll
down the street in search of a dried haddock or
something savoury for Luce, who “seemed a bit
peaked and off her feed,”—Luce cannot speak of
those days, and of her husband's constant thought
for her now, without tears—“why, from my
cousin, Anne Jane; I met the postman—and
Luce, I couldn't get anything worth buying for
you, only a nasty kipper, but I thought kippers
were better than nothing, as you're tired of


OLD MX'.S. JONES. 281
rashers; well, as I was saying, I met the post-
man, and he gave me a letter from Anne Jane.
Her mistress and the whole family are going
abroad, but they are keeping on Anne Jane,
you see, though she doesn't go with them.
While they are away she has a fancy for a
change. She's tired of the sea and Brighton,
and thinks she'd like to spend her holiday
in London, so she writes to ask if we can take
her in; she wants to pay for her board and
lodging, but of course that's all nonsense; I
shouldn't let my uncle's daughter pay a half-
penny for bread as long as I had a penny roll;
what do you say, Luce? Shall I tell her to
come; she's a good girl, as you know, and
a quiet, and she'd be company for you while I
am away. What d'ye say, girl?”
“I’d be only too glad for her to come, Dick;
but where is she to sleep; we could only give
her the room at the end of the passage, and— —”
“If that's all, make your mind quite easy; she
doesn't come of a family which trouble them-
selves about what you can't lay hold of. Then
you're agreeable to have her, my girl; if you're
not, just say the word **
“I can't tell you how pleased I should be to
have her, only——”
“I’ll make that all right, old woman,” and
accordingly that very same day Dick went out


282 OLD MRS. JONES.
and bought three sheets of note paper for a
penny, and three envelopes for the same price;
and in the silent seclusion of the stable, while
the horsekeeper was away for his dinner,
indited an epistle to his cousin, in which he
assured her of a warm welcome; of his deter-
mination not to take a farthing of her hard-
earned wages, and of Lucy's delight at the
prospect of showing her the London sights.
“My wife's the best wife ever lived,” he
finished, “but she's a bit down at present, and
I know you'll cheer her up.
“So no more at present, from your loving
cousin,
“R. TIPPENS.
“P. S. I hope you're not afraid of ghosts, for folks
will have it this house is haunted, though neither
Luce or myself have ever seen anything worse
nor ourselves.”
All in good time Miss Anne Jane Tippens
arrived at the house tenanted by her cousins
from London Bridge Station in a four-wheeler, on
the top of which appeared a trunk, encased in a
neat holland cover, bound with red, the handi-
work of Anne Jane, who paid the cabman his
exact fare duly ascertained beforehand, and
walked in the hall old Mrs. Jones was supposed
to haunt, laden with all the impedimenta
perishable creatures of the frailer sex are so


OLD MRS. JONES. 283
fond of carrying whithersoever they go—a
withered nosegay, a basket filled with seaweed
and shells, a bandbox, another paper-box,
oblong, and a few paper parcels were amongst
the baggage; but at length everything was
stowed away in the room Doctor Jones had used
as a surgery, and Mrs. Jones stood surveying
the “very genteel figure” of her husband's
cousin, as that young person, after refreshing
laving of her dusty face, stood before the glass,
“doing up" her hair. -
Miss Tippens was the incarnation of the ideal
sewing-maid in a good family.
Tall, but not too tall; thin, but not too thin ;
with pallid face, brown eyes, thick hair brushed
back, and tightly plaited till it looked of no
account, not pretty or ugly, quiet of move-
ment, soft of voice; a good girl who—at last
her toilet finished—turned to Mrs. Tippens and
said: -
“Now, dear, you'll let me help you all I can
while I stay here.”


2S4 OLL MRS. JONES.
CHAPTER VI.
“T NEVER told her one single word about
old Mrs. Jones; there seemed a spell on
me,” said Mrs. Tippens, using the approved
formula of her class, when speaking, sub-
sequently, concerning the events which rendered
Miss Tippens's visit memorable. “That very
first day as ever was she said, with that still,
sort of laugh of hers, Dick had warned her
not to come if she felt anyways shy of ghosts; I
have always had rather a wish to see a ghost,’
she went on, making my very blood run cold
with the light way she talked, and maybe old
Mrs. Jones listening to her for aught I could tell,
“What sort of a ghost is it you keep here,
Lucy?’
“‘There has been a lot of chatter about the
house, I made answer, “but I don't say any-
thing on the subject indoors for fear of the
children being frightened. People pretend
there is something not right in the place, but
nothing has come Dick's way or mine either;”
and then I began talking of something else and
Anne took the hint; she was a wonderfully


OLD MRS. JONES. 285
wise, prudent sort of girl, as girls have to be
who get into high families and want to keep
their situations.”
The day following Miss Tippens arrival was
devoted to showing her some of the London
sights. She had been in London before, but
only for a short time when “the family” came
up to town, and she being kept hard at work
under the eye of an exceedingly strict house-
keeper was unable to see any of the wonders of
the metropolis, except Kensal Green Cemetery,
concerning which cheerful place she spoke with
a good deal of enthusiasm. As a foretaste of
the delights to come, Mrs. Tippens took her to
the Abbey, showed her the exterior of the
Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery,
Northumberland House, the fountains in Tra-
falgar Square, Covent Garden, Somerset House,
Temple Bar, St. Paul's, and the Monument. By
the time they had arrived at Fish Street Hill,
Anne Jane was tired out, and declining to
climb Pope's “tall bully,” asked Mrs. Tippens
if they were very far from home, “because,”
she added, “I don’t think I can walk much
more.”
“Dear me!” cried Mrs. Tippens, “I ought to
have remembered you were not over strong;
why you look fit to drop. We'll go down to
the pier and take the boat straight back, and


286 OLD MRS. JONES.
you can rest all day to-morrow, for I shan't be
able to stir out, as our first-floors are leaving,
and I must see about getting the rooms fit
for any one to see.”
“You’ll sleep without rocking to-night, young
woman,” observed Mr. Tippens, as they all sat
together over an early supper.
“I always sleep wonderfully sound,” replied
Miss Tippens, stating the fact as if some pe-
culiar merit attached to it.
“And you’d better lie in the morning, and I'll
bring you a cup of tea,” said Mrs. Tippens,
kindly hospitable.
“Ay, make her stop a-bed,” exclaimed Mr.
Tippens. “I'll be bound she gets none too
much sleep in service. I’d like well, to see a
bit of colour in your cheeks before you leave
us.”
Next morning Mrs. Tippens took a tray, on
which was set out a nice little breakfast, into
her visitor's bed-chamber. Anne Jane did not
look much the better for her night's rest, and
morning's sleep.
“I woke at five,” she said, “and then went
off again, and never roused till you came in, and
yet I feel as tired as possible. I am not much
accustomed to walking, and we did walk a long
way yesterday.”
“Yes, we went too far,” agreed Mrs. Tippens


OLD MRS. JONES. 287
and then she sat down beside her guest's pillow,
and tucked the sheet under the tray to keep it
steady, and hoped she would relish her break-
fast, which Anne declared “she was sure to do,
if only because they were so kind to her.”
“We would like to be kind to you,” said Mrs.
Tippens; adding, so that no more might be said
on the subject; “and you slept well ?”
“Yes; but isn't it funny, all the earlier part of
the night, I was dreaming about a woman being
murdered. It was talking about old times, and
wandering about those ancient places and tombs
and monuments, I suppose, made me think of
such things. I was quite glad to see the sun
shining in at the window when I woke, for oh!
the dream did appear just like reality,” and the
dreamer paused to drink a little tea, and take a
bit of bread and butter, and munch a few leaves
of water cress, and taste the delicate slices of
ham Dick himself had cut, what he called,
“Vauxhall fashion,” to tempt his cousin's poor
appetite, while Mrs. Tippens sat silent, afraid,
she could not tell why, of what might be
coming.
“Dreams are strange things,” proceeded Miss
Tippens, after the fashion of a person origin-
ating an entirely novel idea, “and mine was
a strange dream.”
“Your tea will be stone cold, dear,” inter-


288 OLD MRS. JONES.
posed Mrs. Tippens. It was but deferring the
evil hour, she felt, yet every moment of delay
seemed a moment gained.
“I don't like it very warm,” answered the
other, “and I want to tell you my dream. I
thought I was in a room I had never seen
before, with three windows to the street, and
one long, narrow window that looked out I
didn’t know on what. The room was wain-
scotted about two yards from the floor, well
furnished with chairs and tables; I could feel
a thick carpet under my feet, and see a
glass over the chimney-piece, in which a
woman was looking at herself. Oh! Luce,
she was the strangest woman I ever beheld, so
little, she was forced to stand on a footstool
to see herself in the glass; she had a brown
face and grey hair, and her dress was un-
fastened, and a necklace, that sparkled and
glittered, clasped her neck, and she pinned a
brooch, that shone like fire, in the front of
her under bodice; and on a little table be-
side her lay an open jewel case, in which
there were precious stones, gleaming like green
and yellow stars.”
“Do eat your breakfast, Anne, and never mind
the dream; you can tell it to me afterwards.”
“There isn’t much more to tell,” answered
Anne. “All at once she saw in the glass the


OLD MRS. JONES. 289
door open, and a man come in. With a stifled
scream she jumped down from the stool,
seized the case, and tried to close her dress
up round her throat, and hide the necklace;
but he was too quick for her. He said some-
thing, I could not hear what ; and then, as
she cowered down, he caught her and wrenched
the case out of her hand, and made a snatch
at the necklace just as she flew upon him,
with all her fingers bent, and uttering the most
terrible cries that ever came out of a woman’s
lips—I think I hear them now ; then, in a minute
she fell back, and I could see she was only
kept from dropping on the floor by the tight
grip he had of the necklace. I seemed to know
she was being choked, and I tried to call out,
but I could not utter a sound. I strove to
rush at the man, but my feet felt rooted where
I stood; then there came a great darkness like
the darkness of a winter's night.”
“Let me get you another cup of tea, dear,”
said Mrs. Tippens, in a voice which shook a little
in spite of all her efforts to steady it; “you’ve
let this stand so long it is not fit to drink.”
“It it just as I like my tea, thank you,”
answered Miss Tippens, cheerfully, as she devoted
herself to the good things provided. “What
do you think of my dream?”
“That I shouldn’t have liked to dream it,”
U


OLD MRS. JONES. 291
“What a wonderfully nice large house for
Dick to have got,” continued Miss Tippens.
“Yes,” answered Dick's wife, faintly. There
was nothing to be objected to in the size of the
house, if only Mrs. Jones could have been kept
out of it !
“If you don't mind my leaving you, Anne, for
half-an-hour, I think I'll just run out and get a
few things we want,” she said. “Supposing any
one should come after the first-floor, Mrs. Bur-
dock can show it; ” which would have been all
very well, had not Mrs. Burdock, ten minutes
after Mrs. Tippens departure, put her head into
the parlour to say that she should like to go home
to see to her children's dinners, and, if it made
no difference, she would come back in the after-
noon and wipe over the windows and blacklead
the grates. “The rooms are quite clean and
sweet,” she added, “if anybody by chance do
come to look at them.”
The children were out in the yard playing,
the meat was cooking beautifully in the oven,
the fruit pudding was boiling gently on the
trivet, the potatoes were in the saucepan, ready
to be put on the fire at a certain time which
Mrs. Tippens had indicated; the street was sim-
mering in the noontide heat of a summer's
day, and Anne Jane, making a frock for the
baby asleep in its cradle, was thinking Lucy's


292 OLD MRS. JONES.
lines had fallen into very pleasant places, when
there came at the front door a knock, which
she instinctively understood meant lodgers.
They were two young gentlemen, attracted
by the neat appearance of the house, by the
snowy curtains in Mrs. Tippens's room, the
bird-cage hanging in the window, the flowers
in bloom, ranged in pots on the sill.
“Could we see the rooms you have to let?”
asked the elder, who acted as spokesman.
“Certainly, sir; will you be pleased to walk
in,” answered Anne Jane, in her best manner;
and motioning to the strangers to precede her,
she followed them up to the first floor, where she
flung wide the door of the principal apartment
“By Jovel” exclaimed both men, almost
simultaneously, “who'd have thought there
was such a jolly room in this old house,” and
they walked over to one of the windows and
looked out into the street, and then turned to-
wards the fireplace, and then——
“Hollo! What's the matter?” cried the first
speaker, hurrying towards the door against the
lintel of which Mr. Tippens cousin was leaning,
looking more like a corpse than a living woman.
“Here, hand over that chair, Hal, I believe
she is going to faint.”
“No,” she gasped; “no-no–I—shall be
better--directly.”


OLD MRS. JONES. 293
At that moment, Mrs. Tippens, who had heard
from a neighbour some gentlemen were gone
to look at her rooms, put her key in the
lock and came hurrying upstairs. The first
glance told her what had happened.
“My cousin is not very strong, sir,” she said,
in a voice she tried to keep steady, though she
was trembling in every limb. “I'll just take her
into the parlour, and be with you in a mo-
ment, if you please.”
“Let me help you,” entreated the younger man.
“Take my arm, do—is she subject to attacks of
this sort,” he went on, speaking in a lower tone.
“Not that I know of,” was the reply. “Per-
haps, sir,” suggested Mrs. Tippens, “you would
not mind looking over the rooms by your-
selves. There is no one in but the children;
I scarcely like leaving my cousin alone.”
“Is there anything you want?—anything I can
run out and get for you?” asked the young
fellow, pleasantly. “Do you think that a little
brandy——”
“I have some in the house, thank you, sir,”
answered Mrs. Tippens; and so at last she got
rid of him, and stood looking at Anne Jane, who,
leaning back in Mr. Tippens' own particular arm-
chair, looked up at her, and murmured, “The
room.”
“Yes, dear.”


296 OLD MRS. JONES.
in every room in the house, and as fast as new
lodgers come and we think we are going to be
a bit comfortable at last, drives them to give
notice. Fever and ague would be small evils
in comparison to old Mrs. Jones, and why she
torments us so I can’t imagine, we never did
the woman any injury; and as for her money, I
am sure if it was lying in bags of gold and
silver at my feet I wouldn't touch a coin of it.”
The two men stared at each other in amaze-
ment, then the elder said, solemnly:
“In Heaven's name, who is Mrs. Jones?”
“She was the wife of a Doctor Jones, sir. He
once rented this house. He and she disappeared
the same night, and have never been heard of
since.”
“But I thought you said she lived here?”
“No, sir; I don’t know where she lives, if
she is living at all; but this is the way of it,
one set of lodgers after another say they are
very sorry but they can’t stop on account of
old Mrs. Jones. They either meet her on the
stairs, or she takes a chair at the table when
they are having their dinner, or she goes into
their bedroom with a light in her hand, and
then my cousin must get dreaming about her
and, as you saw, was taken bad the moment she
crossed the threshold of this room. I am sure,
sir, I never did believe in ghosts and such-like


OLD MI'S. JONES. 297
before we came here, but I can’t disbelieve now,
after what I've heard; and so I tell you not to
take the apartments or to go to any expense
buying furniture, for you wouldn't stop—I know
you wouldn't—a fortnight is the longest any-
body ever stays now.”
“That settles the matter, we'll come, and we'll
stay longer. For my own part I have always
rather wanted to see a ghost and——”
“Oh, don't talk that way, please, sir.”
“Well, at any rate, we'll pay you for the
rooms for a month certain, and if you can do
our cooking and make us a little comfortable,
we won't quarrel about terms.”
“But I don't think you exactly understand,
Sir.”
“Yes I do, and I trust we shall know more
about old Mrs. Jones than we do now, before
we are much older.” • *
“I hope you won't buy good furniture, sir,
till you have been here a few days; 1 can spare
enough just to make the place tidy for you to
come into,” and so it was settled; the young
men, after saying they should like to take pos-
session the same evening, put a month's rent
and money to provide grocery and so forth into
Mrs. Tippens reluctant hand, and departed.
“Let what will happen, they can't say I did
not warn them,” thought Mrs. Tippens, as she


298 OLD M.R.S. JONES.
hurried off to see whether Anne Jane had been
able to attend to the potatoes, or if they were
boiled to pulp.
Meantime the friends, walking along the street
together, remarked, “what a strange-looking girl
that young woman who so nearly fainted.”
“Yes, cataleptic I shouldn't wonder; did you
notice what a far-away unseeing sort of ex-
pression there was in her eyes.”
“I did; and what a thick white complexion,
if I may use the term.”
“That is a queer notion about old Mrs. Jones,
we must get Mrs. Tippens up to make tea for us
some night and hear all the rights of the story.”
“And I'll take the liberty of putting fresh
locks on the doors.”
“You think it is somebody playing tricks,
then ?” -
“Of course; what else can it be. You don’t
believe in disembodied spirits taking up their
abode in brick and mortar houses, I suppose?”
It was a strange thing, as Mrs. Tippens often
subsequently remarked, that from the time the
new lodgers, who were medical students, took
possession of the first-floor, people seemed able to
stay in the other parts of the house. Where old
Mrs. Jones had gone, and what old Mrs. Jones
was doing, could only, Mrs. Tippens felt, be
o?
matter for conjecture; one comfort, she ceased


OLD MRS. JONES. 301
“What would be the good? She's in every
room in the house; she's up and down the
stairs, and on the roof, and along the parapet,
and——”
“Don’t talk about her any more, you'll
frighten me,” exclaimed Mrs. Tippens.
“And haven't I been frightened. How
would you like to lie in the dark and know
a woman——”
“Mrs. Tippens,” called a voice, which made
both women jump.
“Law !” exclaimed Mrs. Tippens, recovering
herself, “you needn't be frightened, Anne, it's
only Mr. Maldon—(yes, sir, I'm coming)—I re-
member he left word with little Lucy, he wanted
to see me before he went out this morning, and
what with one thing and another, I quite forgot
it.” Having tendered which explanation, Mrs.
Tippens hurried to the first floor, leaving Anne
Jane sitting with her hands tightly folded, and her
great eyes fixed on vacancy, or–old Mrs. Jones.
“Close the door, if you please, Mrs. Tippens,”
said Mr. Maldon, the elder of her two new
lodgers, as after her apologies for her forgetful-
ness, the nominal mistress of Dr. Jones' former
residence stood waiting to hear what was
wanted. “For some days past I have wished to
speak to you alone. I only think it right to
say—”


3O4 OLD MIRS. JONES.
“Yes, yes, that's all very well,” interrupted
Mr. Maldon, “but don't you see, my good soul,
this tendency of your cousin's explains the
whole mystery; gets rid, in fact, of Mrs. Jones
altogether.”
“In what way?” asked Mrs. Tippens.
“Why only in one way, of course. Your
lodgers had heard the story and thought your
cousin walking in her sleep must be old Mrs.
Jones.
“Yes, sir, but my cousin never entered these
doors till two days before yourself, and for nine
months previous to that my lodgers were faint-
ing and flitting on account of the woman who
came into their room and met them on the
stairs.”
“Is that so?” said Mr. Maldon, in the tone of
a man who feels his theory has no more substan-
tial foundation than an air castle.
“Yes, sir, it is quite true,” answered Mrs.
Tippens, a little triumphantly—since no one
likes to be dispossessed of a point. “Anne
Jane she come up from Brighton the day but
one before you took these lodgings. All the
same, sir, I don't mind telling you that she can't
get rest neither night nor day, because of old
Mrs. Jones.” -
“Dreams about her, eh?” suggested the
medical student, with alacrity.


OLD MRS. JONES. 305
“She has been crying her eyes out just now
because she declares the old lady won't let
her be. Stands at her bedside every night
regular, wanting her to do something Anne
Jane spends her days trying to remember.”
“Really an interesting case,” thought the
future medical man ; who added aloud: “Well,
Mrs. Tippens, I can but repeat my advice, let
your cousin see a good doctor, and lock her
door on the outside.”
“I am sure, sir, I feel very thankful to you,”
answered Mrs. Tippens; and she went downstairs
and tossed up a very pretty little supper for
Dick and her cousin, during the course of which
meal she announced in a laughing way to her
husband, that Anne Jane was not very well, and
felt a bit nervous, and that she, Luce, meant
to sleep with their visitor;” which information
she accompanied with such sly looks, and such
a world of meaning in her face, that Tippens
looking up from the crab, cucumber, lettuce,
and vinegar he was eating in disastrous quan-
tities, answered shortly,
“All right, old girl.”
Consequently, Mrs. Tippens, for once, leaving
the custody of her children to Dick, after having
cleared away the supper things, retired to rest
with Miss Tippens.
Mrs. Tippens took the side of the bed next the
X


OLD MRS. JONES. 309
he expressed himself, “there was something
stranger about the matter than he thought.”
Immediately it dawned upon his under-
standing that though the woman's eyes were
wide open, she did not see him, and that she was
not drunk, as he had supposed, but fast asleep.
Therefore he woke her up, and enquired
“what she was doing there at four o'clock in
the morning?”
The girl's terror when suddenly recalled to
consciousness, she found herself only partially
dressed, in a road perfectly unknown to her,
held firmly in the grasp of a stalwart policeman,
was so great as utterly to deprive her of speech.
She tried to collect her senses, she strove to ask
him how she came there, but no word passed
her parched and trembling lips. In a very
agony of shame and distress, she allowed herself
to be led to the station house; but there, when
addressed by the inspector, she broke into a
passion of weeping, which culminated in a fit of
violent hysterics, that in turn was succeeded by
a sort of wandering the doctor regarded as a
precursor of some severe illness. “The girl is
quite over-wrought,” he said; “I wonder who
this old Mrs. Jones is she talks so much about.”
“Oh ! save me from her—oh, Luce!—oh, Dick!
don't let her come near me again,” at that
moment Anne Jane again cried in terror.


OLD MRS. JONES. 3II
the inspector, “that Doctor Jones' wife came
to her bedside, and bade her get up and dress,
and opened the door of the room, and the front
door, and made her walk till she was fit to drop,
through places and streets she had never seen
before, till they came to the garden gate of St.
Julian's; she passed through that and kept
beckoning her to follow—‘and I know I tried
hard, and then you must have awakened me.”
“It's a rather unlikely tale altogether,”
observed the inspector, but still he kept the
matter in his mind, and thought it worth while
to make a few enquiries and set a detective to
work; and, had a watch kept on Doctor Schloss,
the great German chemist, who lived in a very
secluded manner at St. Julian's—the result of
all being that one day a policeman appeared
at the house, and, asking if he could see the
doctor, arrested him on the charge of “Wilful
Murder.” . .
“But this is absurd,” said the great chemist,
speaking in very broken English, “who is it
that you make believe I have murdered?”
“Your wife, Zillah Jones,” was the answer,
Whereupon the doctor shrugged his shoulders,
and enquired who Zillah Jones might be.
Asked if he would come quietly with the
policeman, he laughed, and said, “Oh ! yes.”
Warned that any statement he made would be


3I4 OLD MIRS. JONES.
upon the assembled crowd, while the dreadful
figure was seen running from point to point in a
mad effort to escape.
Suddenly the roof crashed in, millions of
sparks flew upwards from the burning rafters,
there was a roar as if the doors of some mighty
furnace had been suddenly opened, a blaze of
light shot straight towards the heavens, and
when the spectators looked again there was no
figure to be seen anywhere, only the bare walls,
and red flames rushing through the sashless
windows of the house once haunted by “Old
Mrs. Jones.”
THE END.











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