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Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

by M. R. James

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

to them._

Contents

Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book

Lost Hearts

The Mezzotint

The Ash-tree

Number 13

Count Magnus

“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas

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

St Bertrand de Comminges and Viborg are real places: that in “Oh,

Whistle, and I’ll Come to You” I had Felixstowe in mind. As for the

fragments of ostensible erudition which are scattered about my pages,

hardly anything in them is not pure invention; there never was,

naturally, any such book as that which I quote in “The Treasure of

Abbot Thomas”. “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book” was written in 1894 and

printed soon after in the _National Review_, “Lost Hearts” appeared in

the _Pall Mall Magazine_; of the next five stories, most of which were

read to friends at Christmas-time at King’s College, Cambridge, I only

recollect that I wrote “Number 13” in 1899, while “The Treasure of

Abbot Thomas” was composed in the summer of 1904.

M. R. JAMES

CANON ALBERIC’S SCRAP-BOOK

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

Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to

Bagnères-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the

Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of

tourists. In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world

place—I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not

a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially

from Toulouse to see St Bertrand’s Church, and had left two friends,

who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their hotel at

Toulouse, under promise to join him on the following morning. Half an

hour at the church would satisfy _them_, and all three could then

pursue their journey in the direction of Auch. But our Englishman had

come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a

note-book and to use several dozens of plates in the process of

describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful church that

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

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

church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter

appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the

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

he came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of

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

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

of other church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive, or

rather hunted and oppressed, air which he had. He was perpetually half

glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be

hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting

every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman

hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed

delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an

unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, when reckoned up,

certainly pointed to the last idea; but, still, the impression conveyed

was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife.

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

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

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

found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against

the wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. Dennistoun became

rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the

old man from his _déjeuner_, that he was regarded as likely to make

away with St Bertrand’s ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed

crocodile that hangs over the font, began to torment him.

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

notes alone; you can lock me in if you like. I shall want at least two

hours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn’t it?”

“Good heavens!” said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to

throw into a state of unaccountable terror, “such a thing cannot be

thought of for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no;

two hours, three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted,

I am not at all cold, with many thanks to monsieur.”

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

warned, and you must take the consequences.”

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

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

remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the

treasure-chamber, had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still

keeping at Dennistoun’s heels, and every now and then whipping round as

if he had been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that

trouble a large empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they

were sometimes.

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

metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring

glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. ‘It is he—that is—it

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

other for a full minute.”

Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was

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

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

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

which runs thus:

_Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem diabolus diu volebat

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

sought to strangle.)

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

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

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

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

Dennistoun naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the

question would not go away from him, “Why should a daub of this kind

affect anyone so strongly?” He seemed to himself to be getting some

sort of clue to the reason of the strange look that had been puzzling

him all the day: the man must be a monomaniac; but what was his

monomania?

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

church began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises—the muffled

footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all

day—seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently

quickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

among the pines and down to the valleys, loud with mountain-streams,

calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and repeat the

salutation of the angel to her whom he called Blessed among women. With

that a profound quiet seemed to fall for the first time that day upon

the little town, and Dennistoun and the sacristan went out of the

church.

On the doorstep they fell into conversation.

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

sacristy.”

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

town.”

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

but it is now such a small place—” Here came a strange pause of

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

“But if monsieur is _amateur des vieux livres_, I have at home

something that might interest him. It is not a hundred yards.”

At once all Dennistoun’s cherished dreams of finding priceless

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

again the next moment. It was probably a stupid missal of Plantin’s

printing, about 1580. Where was the likelihood that a place so near

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

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

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

sudden determination of the sacristan recurred to Dennistoun, and he

wondered in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some

purlieu to be made away with as a supposed rich Englishman. He

contrived, therefore, to begin talking with his guide, and to drag in,

in a rather clumsy fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to

join him early the next morning. To his surprise, the announcement

seemed to relieve the sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that

oppressed him.

“That is well,” he said quite brightly—“that is very well. Monsieur

will travel in company with his friends; they will be always near him.

It is a good thing to travel thus in company—sometimes.”

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

it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man.

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

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

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

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

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

whole place bore, as does the rest of Comminges, the aspect of decaying

age.

Arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment.

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

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

it is you have got.”

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

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

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

fear for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another.

Plainly, the owner of the face was the sacristan’s daughter; and, but

for the expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough.

She brightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an

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

of which Dennistoun only caught these words, said by the sacristan, “He

was laughing in the church,” words which were answered only by a look

of terror from the girl.

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

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

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

character of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which

reached almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of

the natural colours, the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of

some age and solidity, and when a lamp had been brought, and chairs

set, the sacristan went to this chest, and produced therefrom, with

growing excitement and nervousness, as Dennistoun thought, a large

book, wrapped in a white cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely

embroidered in red thread. Even before the wrapping had been removed,

Dennistoun began to be interested by the size and shape of the volume.

“Too large for a missal,” he thought, “and not the shape of an

antiphoner; perhaps it may be something good, after all.” The next

moment the book was open, and Dennistoun felt that he had at last lit

upon something better than good. Before him lay a large folio, bound,

perhaps, late in the seventeenth century, with the arms of Canon

Alberic de Mauléon stamped in gold on the sides. There may have been a

hundred and fifty leaves of paper in the book, and on almost every one

of them was fastened a leaf from an illuminated manuscript. Such a

collection Dennistoun had hardly dreamed of in his wildest moments.

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

which could not be later than A.D. 700. Further on was a complete set

of pictures from a Psalter, of English execution, of the very finest

kind that the thirteenth century could produce; and, perhaps best of

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

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

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

of the copy of Papias “On the Words of Our Lord”, which was known to

have existed as late as the twelfth century at Nîmes?[1] In any case,

his mind was made up; that book must return to Cambridge with him, even

if he had to draw the whole of his balance from the bank and stay at

St. Bertrand till the money came. He glanced up at the sacristan to see

if his face yielded any hint that the book was for sale. The sacristan

was pale, and his lips were working.

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

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

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

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

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

more recent date than anything he had yet seen, which puzzled him

considerably. They must be contemporary, he decided, with the

unprincipled Canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the Chapter

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

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

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

cloisters of St Bertrand’s. There were curious signs looking like

planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words in the corners; and in the

north-west angle of the cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below

the plan were some lines of writing in Latin, which ran thus:

Responsa 12mi Dec. 1694. Interrogatum est: Inveniamne? Responsum est:

Invenies. Fiamne dives? Fies. Vivamne invidendus? Vives. Moriarne in

lecto meo? Ita. (Answers of the 12th of December, 1694. It was asked:

Shall I find it? Answer: Thou shalt. Shall I become rich? Thou wilt.

Shall I live an object of envy? Thou wilt. Shall I die in my bed? Thou

wilt.)

“A good specimen of the treasure-hunter’s record—quite reminds one of

Mr Minor-Canon Quatremain in _Old St Paul’s_,” was Dennistoun’s

comment, and he turned the leaf.

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

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

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

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

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

the seventeenth century, representing, one would say at first sight, a

Biblical scene; for the architecture (the picture represented an

interior) and the figures had that semi-classical flavour about them

which the artists of two hundred years ago thought appropriate to

illustrations of the Bible. On the right was a King on his throne, the

throne elevated on twelve steps, a canopy overhead, soldiers on either

side—evidently King Solomon. He was bending forward with outstretched

sceptre, in attitude of command; his face expressed horror and disgust,

yet there was in it also the mark of imperious command and confident

power. The left half of the picture was the strangest, however. The

interest plainly centred there. On the pavement before the throne were

grouped four soldiers, surrounding a crouching figure which must be

described in a moment. A fifth soldier lay dead on the pavement, his

neck distorted, and his eye-balls starting from his head. The four

surrounding guards were looking at the King. In their faces, the

sentiment of horror was intensified; they seemed, in fact, only

restrained from flight by their implicit trust in their master. All

this terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in their

midst. I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression

which this figure makes upon anyone who looks at it. I recollect once

showing the photograph of the drawing to a lecturer on morphology—a

person of, I was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits

of mind. He absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that

evening, and he told me afterwards that for many nights he had not

dared to put out his light before going to sleep. However, the main

traits of the figure I can at least indicate. At first you saw only a

mass of coarse, matted black hair; presently it was seen that this

covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the

muscles standing out like wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor,

covered, like the body, with long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned.

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

and were fixed upon the throned King with a look of beast-like hate.

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

translated into human form, and endowed with intelligence just less

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

inspired by the appalling effigy. One remark is universally made by

those to whom I have shown the picture: “It was drawn from the life.”

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

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

pressed upon his eyes; his daughter, looking up at the cross on the

wall, was telling her beads feverishly.

At last the question was asked, “Is this book for sale?”

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

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

pleases.”

“How much do you ask for it?”

“I will take two hundred and fifty francs.”

This was confounding. Even a collector’s conscience is sometimes

stirred, and Dennistoun’s conscience was tenderer than a collector’s.

“My good man!” he said again and again, “your book is worth far more

than two hundred and fifty francs, I assure you—far more.”

But the answer did not vary: “I will take two hundred and fifty francs,

not more.”

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

was paid, the receipt signed, a glass of wine drunk over the

transaction, and then the sacristan seemed to become a new man. He

stood upright, he ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him,

he actually laughed or tried to laugh. Dennistoun rose to go.

“I shall have the honour of accompanying monsieur to his hotel?” said

the sacristan.

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

there is a moon.”

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

“Then, monsieur will summon me if—if he finds occasion; he will keep

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

“Certainly, certainly,” said Dennistoun, who was impatient to examine

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

under his arm.

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

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

somewhat” from the foreigner whom her father had spared.

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

good enough to accept it?”

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

mademoiselle want for it?

“Nothing—nothing in the world. Monsieur is more than welcome to it.”

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

so that Dennistoun was reduced to profuse thanks, and submitted to have

the chain put round his neck. It really seemed as if he had rendered

the father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to

repay. As he set off with his book they stood at the door looking after

him, and they were still looking when he waved them a last good night

from the steps of the Chapeau Rouge.

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

his acquisition. The landlady had manifested a particular interest in

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

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

hurried dialogue between her and the said sacristan in the passage

outside the _salle à manger_; some words to the effect that “Pierre and

Bertrand would be sleeping in the house” had closed the conversation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

was alone in his bedroom, taking stock of Canon Alberic’s treasures, in

which every moment revealed something more charming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, probably. It is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one’s

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

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

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

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

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

brain with their own incalculable quickness.

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

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

hand in that picture!”

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

covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse

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

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

horny and wrinkled.

He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at

his heart. The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising

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

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

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

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

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

showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy

life which shone there, were the most horrifying features in the whole

vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them—intelligence beyond

that of a beast, below that of a man.

The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennistoun were the intensest

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

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

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

crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part

of the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in

hideous pain.

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

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

out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with him

that night, and his two friends were at St Bertrand by nine o’clock

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

himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though

not until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan.

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

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

landlady. He showed no surprise.

“It is he—it is he! I have seen him myself,” was his only comment; and

to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed: “Deux fois je l’ai

vu; mille fois je l’ai senti.” He would tell them nothing of the

provenance of the book, nor any details of his experiences. “I shall

soon sleep, and my rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me?” he

said.[2]

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

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

“obsession”.

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

the back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may

be supposed to throw light on the situation:

Contradictio Salomonis cum demonio nocturno.

Albericus de Mauléone delineavit.

V. Deus in adiutorium. Ps. Qui habitat.

Sancte Bertrande, demoniorum effugator, intercede pro me miserrimo.

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

passus sum, plura adhuc passurus. Dec. 29, 1701.[3]

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

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

_Psalm_. Whoso dwelleth xci.

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

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

see it for the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more

to suffer yet. Dec. 29, 1701.

The “Gallia Christiana” gives the date of the Canon’s death as

December 31, 1701, “in bed, of a sudden seizure”. Details of this

kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani.

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

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

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

on sore strokes.” On another occasion he said: “Isaiah was a very

sensible man; doesn’t he say something about night monsters living in

the ruins of Babylon? These things are rather beyond us at present.”

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

it. We had been, last year, to Comminges, to see Canon Alberic’s tomb.

It is a great marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large

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

Dennistoun talking for some time with the Vicar of St Bertrand’s, and

as we drove away he said to me: “I hope it isn’t wrong: you know I am a

Presbyterian—but I—I believe there will be ‘saying of Mass and singing

of dirges’ for Alberic de Mauléon’s rest.” Then he added, with a touch

of the Northern British in his tone, “I had no notion they came so

dear.”

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

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

Comminges on the occasion of his first visit.

LOST HEARTS

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

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

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

and who jumped out as soon as it had stopped, looked about him with the

keenest curiosity during the short interval that elapsed between the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

surmounted by an ornamental cupola with a gilded vane.

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

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

studded with oaks and fringed with firs, which stood out against the

sky. The clock in the church-tower, buried in trees on the edge of the

park, only its golden weather-cock catching the light, was striking

six, and the sound came gently beating down the wind. It was altogether

a pleasant impression, though tinged with the sort of melancholy

appropriate to an evening in early autumn, that was conveyed to the

mind of the boy who was standing in the porch waiting for the door to

open to him.

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

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

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

The offer was unexpected, because all who knew anything of Mr Abney

looked upon him as a somewhat austere recluse, into whose steady-going

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

incongruous element. The truth is that very little was known of Mr

Abney’s pursuits or temper. The Professor of Greek at Cambridge had

been heard to say that no one knew more of the religious beliefs of the

later pagans than did the owner of Aswarby. Certainly his library

contained all the then available books bearing on the Mysteries, the

Orphic poems, the worship of Mithras, and the Neo-Platonists. In the

marble-paved hall stood a fine group of Mithras slaying a bull, which

had been imported from the Levant at great expense by the owner. He had

contributed a description of it to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, and he

had written a remarkable series of articles in the _Critical Museum_ on

the superstitions of the Romans of the Lower Empire. He was looked

upon, in fine, as a man wrapped up in his books, and it was a matter of

great surprise among his neighbours that he should ever have heard of

his orphan cousin, Stephen Elliott, much more that he should have

volunteered to make him an inmate of Aswarby Hall.

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

Mr Abney—the tall, the thin, the austere—seemed inclined to give his

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

he darted out of his study, rubbing his hands with delight.

“How are you, my boy?—how are you? How old are you?” said he—“that is,

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

supper?”

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

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

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

the first two minutes of their acquaintance.

“I’m twelve years old next birthday, sir,” said Stephen.

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

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

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

Certain?”

“Yes, quite sure, sir.”

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

tea—supper—whatever it is.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the staid Mr Parkes; and conducted Stephen to the

lower regions.

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

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

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

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

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

twenty years’ standing. Consequently, if anyone knew the ins and outs

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

means disinclined to communicate her information.

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

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

was anxious to have explained to him. “Who built the temple at the end

of the laurel walk? Who was the old man whose picture hung on the

staircase, sitting at a table, with a skull under his hand?” These and

many similar points were cleared up by the resources of Mrs Bunch’s

powerful intellect. There were others, however, of which the

explanations furnished were less satisfactory.

One November evening Stephen was sitting by the fire in the

housekeeper’s room reflecting on his surroundings.

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

with the peculiar confidence which children possess in the ability of

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

believed to be reserved for other tribunals.

“Good?—bless the child!” said Mrs Bunch. “Master’s as kind a soul as

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

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

girl, two years after I first come here?”

“No. Do tell me all about them, Mrs Bunch—now, this minute!”

“Well,” said Mrs Bunch, “the little girl I don’t seem to recollect so

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

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

should be took every care with. And the pore child hadn’t no one

belonging to her—she telled me so her own self—and here she lived with

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

somethink of a gipsy in her blood or what not, but one morning she out

of her bed afore any of us had opened a eye, and neither track nor yet

trace of her have I set eyes on since. Master was wonderful put about,

and had all the ponds dragged; but it’s my belief she was had away by

them gipsies, for there was singing round the house for as much as an

hour the night she went, and Parkes, he declare as he heard them

a-calling in the woods all that afternoon. Dear, dear! a hodd child she

was, so silent in her ways and all, but I was wonderful taken up with

her, so domesticated she was—surprising.”

“And what about the little boy?” said Stephen.

“Ah, that pore boy!” sighed Mrs Bunch. “He were a foreigner—Jevanny he

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

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

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

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

But it went the same way with him. They’re a hunruly lot, them foreign

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

the girl. Why he went and what he done was our question for as much as

a year after; for he never took his ’urdy-gurdy, and there it lays on

the shelf.”

The remainder of the evening was spent by Stephen in miscellaneous

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

the hurdy-gurdy.

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

of the house, in which his bedroom was situated, there was an old

disused bathroom. It was kept locked, but the upper half of the door

was glazed, and, since the muslin curtains which used to hang there had

long been gone, you could look in and see the lead-lined bath affixed

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

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

he thought, looking through the glazed door. The moon was shining

through the window, and he was gazing at a figure which lay in the

bath.

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

in the famous vaults of St Michan’s Church in Dublin, which possess the

horrid property of preserving corpses from decay for centuries. A

figure inexpressibly thin and pathetic, of a dusty leaden colour,

enveloped in a shroud-like garment, the thin lips crooked into a faint

and dreadful smile, the hands pressed tightly over the region of the

heart.

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

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

forced Stephen backwards, and he awoke to the fact that he was indeed

standing on the cold boarded floor of the passage in the full light of

the moon. With a courage which I do not think can be common among boys

of his age, he went to the door of the bathroom to ascertain if the

figure of his dream were really there. It was not, and he went back to

bed.

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

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

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

was greatly interested, and made notes of the matter in what he called

“his book”.

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

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

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

care of himself, and to shut his bedroom window at night; and that

Censorinus had some valuable remarks on the subject. Two incidents that

occurred about this time made an impression upon Stephen’s mind.

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

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

The following evening Mrs Bunch was occupying herself in mending his

nightgown.

“Gracious me, Master Stephen!” she broke forth rather irritably, “how

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

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

and mend after you!”

There was indeed a most destructive and apparently wanton series of

slits or scorings in the garment, which would undoubtedly require a

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

chest—long, parallel slits, about six inches in length, some of them

not quite piercing the texture of the linen. Stephen could only express

his entire ignorance of their origin: he was sure they were not there

the night before.

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

the outside of my bedroom door; and I’m sure I never had anything to do

with making _them_.”

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

departed hastily from the room, and was heard making her way upstairs.

In a few minutes she came down.

“Well,” she said, “Master Stephen, it’s a funny thing to me how them

marks and scratches can ’a’ come there—too high up for any cat or dog

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

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

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

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

to your bed.”

“I always do, Mrs Bunch, as soon as I’ve said my prayers.”

“Ah, that’s a good child: always say your prayers, and then no one

can’t hurt you.”

Herewith Mrs Bunch addressed herself to mending the injured nightgown,

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

night in March, 1812.

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

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

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

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

than was his wont.

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

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

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

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

with it as I have done.”

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

the Hall.”

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

heard the tale from the men in the shipyards about the rat that could

speak. I never laid no confidence in that before; but tonight, if I’d

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

pretty much have heard what they was saying.”

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

in the wine-cellar indeed!”

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

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

prove my words this minute.”

“What nonsense you do talk, Mr Parkes—not fit for children to listen

to! Why, you’ll be frightening Master Stephen there out of his wits.”

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

the boy’s presence. “Master Stephen knows well enough when I’m

a-playing a joke with you, Mrs Bunch.”

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

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

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

unsuccessful in inducing the butler to give any more detailed account

of his experiences in the wine-cellar.

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

experiences for Stephen: a windy, noisy day, which filled the house and

the gardens with a restless impression. As Stephen stood by the fence

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

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

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

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

again into contact with the living world of which they had formed a

part. After luncheon that day Mr Abney said:

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

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

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

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

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

go to your room at the usual time.”

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

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

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

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

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

and some written sheets of paper lay near it. Mr Abney was sprinkling

some incense on the brazier from a round silver box as Stephen passed,

but did not seem to notice his step.

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

about ten o’clock Stephen was standing at the open window of his

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

mysterious population of the distant moon-lit woods was not yet lulled

to rest. From time to time strange cries as of lost and despairing

wanderers sounded from across the mere. They might be the notes of owls

or water-birds, yet they did not quite resemble either sound. Were not

they coming nearer? Now they sounded from the nearer side of the water,

and in a few moments they seemed to be floating about among the

shrubberies. Then they ceased; but just as Stephen was thinking of

shutting the window and resuming his reading of _Robinson Crusoe_, he

caught sight of two figures standing on the gravelled terrace that ran

along the garden side of the Hall—the figures of a boy and girl, as it

seemed; they stood side by side, looking up at the windows. Something

in the form of the girl recalled irresistibly his dream of the figure

in the bath. The boy inspired him with more acute fear.

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

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

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

unappeasable hunger and longing. The moon shone upon his almost

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

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

raised, he disclosed a terrifying spectacle. On the left side of his

chest there opened a black and gaping rent; and there fell upon

Stephen’s brain, rather than upon his ear, the impression of one of

those hungry and desolate cries that he had heard resounding over the

woods of Aswarby all that evening. In another moment this dreadful pair

had moved swiftly and noiselessly over the dry gravel, and he saw them

no more.

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

and go down to Mr Abney’s study, for the hour appointed for their

meeting was near at hand. The study or library opened out of the

front-hall on one side, and Stephen, urged on by his terrors, did not

take long in getting there. To effect an entrance was not so easy. It

was not locked, he felt sure, for the key was on the outside of the

door as usual. His repeated knocks produced no answer. Mr Abney was

engaged: he was speaking. What! why did he try to cry out? and why was

the cry choked in his throat? Had he, too, seen the mysterious

children? But now everything was quiet, and the door yielded to

Stephen’s terrified and frantic pushing.

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

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

understand them. The most important sentences were as follows:

“It was a belief very strongly and generally held by the ancients—of

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

to place confidence in their assertions—that by enacting certain

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

a very remarkable enlightenment of the spiritual faculties in man may

be attained: that, for example, by absorbing the personalities of a

certain number of his fellow-creatures, an individual may gain a

complete ascendancy over those orders of spiritual beings which control

the elemental forces of our universe.

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

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

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

author of the _Clementine Recognitions_, he had ‘murdered’. I find it

set down, moreover, with considerable detail in the writings of Hermes

Trismegistus, that similar happy results may be produced by the

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

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

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

the _corpora vilia_ of my experiment such persons as could conveniently

be removed without occasioning a sensible gap in society. The first

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

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

wandering Italian lad, named Giovanni Paoli, on the night of March 23,

1805. The final ‘victim’—to employ a word repugnant in the highest

degree to my feelings—must be my cousin, Stephen Elliott. His day must

be this March 24, 1812.

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

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

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

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

disused bathroom or wine-cellar will be found convenient for such a

purpose. Some annoyance may be experienced from the psychic portion of

the subjects, which popular language dignifies with the name of ghosts.

But the man of philosophic temperament—to whom alone the experiment is

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

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

with the liveliest satisfaction the enlarged and emancipated existence

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

placing me beyond the reach of human justice (so-called), but

eliminating to a great extent the prospect of death itself.”

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

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

was a terrible lacerated wound, exposing the heart. There was no blood

on his hands, and a long knife that lay on the table was perfectly

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

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

Abney had met his death by the agency of some wild creature. But

Stephen Elliott’s study of the papers I have quoted led him to a very

different conclusion.

THE MEZZOTINT

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

an adventure which happened to a friend of mine by the name of

Dennistoun, during his pursuit of objects of art for the museum at

Cambridge.

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

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

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

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

the story should make a considerable impression on the mind of a man

whose vocation lay in lines similar to Dennistoun’s, and that he should

be eager to catch at any explanation of the matter which tended to make

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

agitating an emergency. It was, indeed, somewhat consoling to him to

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

institution; that was the business of the Shelburnian Library. The

authorities of that institution might, if they pleased, ransack obscure

corners of the Continent for such matters. He was glad to be obliged at

the moment to confine his attention to enlarging the already

unsurpassed collection of English topographical drawings and engravings

possessed by his museum. Yet, as it turned out, even a department so

homely and familiar as this may have its dark corners, and to one of

these Mr Williams was unexpectedly introduced.

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

of topographical pictures are aware that there is one London dealer

whose aid is indispensable to their researches. Mr J. W. Britnell

publishes at short intervals very admirable catalogues of a large and

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

mansions, churches, and towns in England and Wales. These catalogues

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

museum already contained an enormous accumulation of topographical

pictures, he was a regular, rather than a copious, buyer; and he rather

looked to Mr Britnell to fill up gaps in the rank and file of his

collection than to supply him with rarities.

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

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

was a typewritten communication from the dealer himself. This latter

ran as follows:

DEAR SIR,

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

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

Yours faithfully,

J. W. BRITNELL.

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

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

indicated he found the following entry:

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

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

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

Mr Britnell, who knew his business and his customer, seemed to set

store by it, Mr Williams wrote a postcard asking for the article to be

sent on approval, along with some other engravings and sketches which

appeared in the same catalogue. And so he passed without much

excitement of anticipation to the ordinary labours of the day.

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

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

exception to the rule. It was delivered at the museum by the afternoon

post of Saturday, after Mr Williams had left his work, and it was

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

or in the passages of undisturbed country mansions at the present

moment. It was a rather indifferent mezzotint, and an indifferent

mezzotint is, perhaps, the worst form of engraving known. It presented

a full-face view of a not very large manor-house of the last century,

with three rows of plain sashed windows with rusticated masonry about

them, a parapet with balls or vases at the angles, and a small portico

in the centre. On either side were trees, and in front a considerable

expanse of lawn. The legend _A. W. F. sculpsit_ was engraved on the

narrow margin; and there was no further inscription. The whole thing

gave the impression that it was the work of an amateur. What in the

world Mr Britnell could mean by affixing the price of £2 2s. to such an

object was more than Mr Williams could imagine. He turned it over with

a good deal of contempt; upon the back was a paper label, the left-hand

half of which had been torn off. All that remained were the ends of two

lines of writing: the first had the letters—_ngley Hall_; the

second,—_ssex_.

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

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

then he would send it back to Mr Britnell, with some remarks reflecting

upon the judgement of that gentleman.

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

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

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

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

which golfing persons can imagine for themselves, but which the

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

persons.

The conclusion arrived at was that certain strokes might have been

better, and that in certain emergencies neither player had experienced

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

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

engraving, and said:

“What’s this place, Williams?”

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

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

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

know it, I suppose?”

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

for the museum?”

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

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

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

any figures to give it life.”

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

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

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

the edge in front.”

“Let’s look,” said Williams. “Well, it’s true the light is rather

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

front of the picture.”

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

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

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

Williams had not noticed it before.

“Still,” he said, “though it’s a cleverer thing than I thought, I can’t

spend two guineas of museum money on a picture of a place I don’t

know.”

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

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

subject of his picture. “If the vowel before the _ng_ had only been

left, it would have been easy enough,” he thought; “but as it is, the

name may be anything from Guestingley to Langley, and there are many

more names ending like this than I thought; and this rotten book has no

index of terminations.”

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

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

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

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

explain.

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

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

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

tobacco smoked. During a lull in these operations Williams picked up

the mezzotint from the table without looking at it, and handed it to a

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

and the other particulars which we already know.

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

some interest:

“It’s really a very good piece of work, Williams; it has quite a

feeling of the romantic period. The light is admirably managed, it

seems to me, and the figure, though it’s rather too grotesque, is

somehow very impressive.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Williams, who was just then busy giving

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

the room to look at the view again.

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

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

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

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

lighting his bedroom candle. The picture lay face upwards on the table

where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye

as he turned the lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the

candle on the floor, and he declares now that if he had been left in

the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. But, as that did not

happen, he was able to put down the light on the table and take a good

look at the picture. It was indubitable—rankly impossible, no doubt,

but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the

unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five

o’clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all-fours towards the house,

and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the

back.

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

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

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

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

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

and signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had

undergone since it had come into his possession.

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

behaviour of the picture did not depend upon his own unsupported

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

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

tempted to think that something gravely wrong was happening either to

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

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

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

a determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was

represented. He would therefore ask his neighbour Nisbet to breakfast

with him, and he would subsequently spend a morning over the gazetteer.

Nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about 9.30. His host was not quite

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

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

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

familiar with University life can picture for themselves the wide and

delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two Fellows

of Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning

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

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

for his interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which

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

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

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

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

downwards—ran back, and put it into Nisbet’s hands.

“Now,” he said, “Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see in

that picture. Describe it, if you don’t mind, rather minutely. I’ll

tell you why afterwards.”

“Well,” said Nisbet, “I have here a view of a country-house—English, I

presume—by moonlight.”

“Moonlight? You’re sure of that?”

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

details, and there are clouds in the sky.”

“All right. Go on. I’ll swear,” added Williams in an aside, “there was

no moon when I saw it first.”

“Well, there’s not much more to be said,” Nisbet continued. “The house

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

bottom, where there’s a porch instead of the middle one, and—”

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

“There aren’t any,” said Nisbet; “but—”

“What! No figure on the grass in front?”

“Not a thing.”

“You’ll swear to that?”

“Certainly I will. But there’s just one other thing.”

“What?”

“Why, one of the windows on the ground-floor—left of the door—is open.”

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

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

Nisbet was sitting, and, catching the picture from him, verified the

matter for himself.

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

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

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

papers to Nisbet, and asked him first to sign one—it was his own

description of the picture, which you have just heard—and then to read

the other which was Williams’s statement written the night before.

“What can it all mean?” said Nisbet.

“Exactly,” said Williams. “Well, one thing I must do—or three things,

now I think of it. I must find out from Garwood”—this was his last

night’s visitor—“what he saw, and then I must get the thing

photographed before it goes further, and then I must find out what the

place is.”

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

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

a tragedy somewhere. The question is, has it happened already, or is it

going to come off? You must find out what the place is. Yes,” he said,

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

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

upstairs.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Williams: “I’ll take the picture across to

old Green” (this was the senior Fellow of the College, who had been

Bursar for many years). “It’s quite likely he’ll know it. We have

property in Essex and Sussex, and he must have been over the two

counties a lot in his time.”

“Quite likely he will,” said Nisbet; “but just let me take my

photograph first. But look here, I rather think Green isn’t up today.

He wasn’t in Hall last night, and I think I heard him say he was going

down for the Sunday.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

then drawn up and signed, and Nisbet proceeded to photograph the

picture.

“Now what do you mean to do?” he said. “Are you going to sit and watch

it all day?”

“Well, no, I think not,” said Williams. “I rather imagine we’re meant

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

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

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

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

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

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

that it wouldn’t change much, if at all, in the daytime. We might go

out for a walk this afternoon, and come in to tea, or whenever it gets

dark. I shall leave it out on the table here, and sport the door. My

skip can get in, but no one else.”

The three agreed that this would be a good plan; and, further, that if

they spent the afternoon together they would be less likely to talk

about the business to other people; for any rumour of such a

transaction as was going on would bring the whole of the

Phasmatological Society about their ears.

We may give them a respite until five o’clock.

At or near that hour the three were entering Williams’s staircase. They

were at first slightly annoyed to see that the door of his rooms was

unsported; but in a moment it was remembered that on Sunday the skips

came for orders an hour or so earlier than on weekdays. However, a

surprise was awaiting them. The first thing they saw was the picture

leaning up against a pile of books on the table, as it had been left,

and the next thing was Williams’s skip, seated on a chair opposite,

gazing at it with undisguised horror. How was this? Mr Filcher (the

name is not my own invention) was a servant of considerable standing,

and set the standard of etiquette to all his own college and to several

neighbouring ones, and nothing could be more alien to his practice than

to be found sitting on his master’s chair, or appearing to take any

particular notice of his master’s furniture or pictures. Indeed, he

seemed to feel this himself. He started violently when the three men

were in the room, and got up with a marked effort. Then he said:

“I ask your pardon, sir, for taking such a freedom as to set down.”

“Not at all, Robert,” interposed Mr Williams. “I was meaning to ask you

some time what you thought of that picture.”

“Well, sir, of course I don’t set up my opinion again yours, but it

ain’t the pictur I should ’ang where my little girl could see it, sir.”

“Wouldn’t you, Robert? Why not?”

“No, sir. Why, the pore child, I recollect once she see a Door Bible,

with pictures not ’alf what that is, and we ’ad to set up with her

three or four nights afterwards, if you’ll believe me; and if she was

to ketch a sight of this skelinton here, or whatever it is, carrying

off the pore baby, she would be in a taking. You know ’ow it is with

children; ’ow nervish they git with a little thing and all. But what I

should say, it don’t seem a right pictur to be laying about, sir, not

where anyone that’s liable to be startled could come on it. Should you

be wanting anything this evening, sir? Thank you, sir.”

With these words the excellent man went to continue the round of his

masters, and you may be sure the gentlemen whom he left lost no time in

gathering round the engraving. There was the house, as before, under

the waning moon and the drifting clouds. The window that had been open

was shut, and the figure was once more on the lawn: but not this time

crawling cautiously on hands and knees. Now it was erect and stepping

swiftly, with long strides, towards the front of the picture. The moon

was behind it, and the black drapery hung down over its face so that

only hints of that could be seen, and what was visible made the

spectators profoundly thankful that they could see no more than a white

dome-like forehead and a few straggling hairs. The head was bent down,

and the arms were tightly clasped over an object which could be dimly

seen and identified as a child, whether dead or living it was not

possible to say. The legs of the appearance alone could be plainly

discerned, and they were horribly thin.

From five to seven the three companions sat and watched the picture by

turns. But it never changed. They agreed at last that it would be safe

to leave it, and that they would return after Hall and await further

developments.

When they assembled again, at the earliest possible moment, the

engraving was there, but the figure was gone, and the house was quiet

under the moonbeams. There was nothing for it but to spend the evening

over gazetteers and guide-books. Williams was the lucky one at last,

and perhaps he deserved it. At 11.30 p.m. he read from Murray’s _Guide

to Essex_ the following lines:

16½ miles, _Anningley_. The church has been an interesting building of

Norman date, but was extensively classicized in the last century. It

contains the tomb of the family of Francis, whose mansion, Anningley

Hall, a solid Queen Anne house, stands immediately beyond the

churchyard in a park of about 80 acres. The family is now extinct, the

last heir having disappeared mysteriously in infancy in the year 1802.

The father, Mr Arthur Francis, was locally known as a talented amateur

engraver in mezzotint. After his son’s disappearance he lived in

complete retirement at the Hall, and was found dead in his studio on

the third anniversary of the disaster, having just completed an

engraving of the house, impressions of which are of considerable

rarity.

This looked like business, and, indeed, Mr Green on his return at once

identified the house as Anningley Hall.

“Is there any kind of explanation of the figure, Green?” was the

question which Williams naturally asked.

“I don’t know, I’m sure, Williams. What used to be said in the place

when I first knew it, which was before I came up here, was just this:

old Francis was always very much down on these poaching fellows, and

whenever he got a chance he used to get a man whom he suspected of it

turned off the estate, and by degrees he got rid of them all but one.

Squires could do a lot of things then that they daren’t think of now.

Well, this man that was left was what you find pretty often in that

country—the last remains of a very old family. I believe they were

Lords of the Manor at one time. I recollect just the same thing in my

own parish.”

“What, like the man in _Tess o’ the Durbervilles_?” Williams put in.

“Yes, I dare say; it’s not a book I could ever read myself. But this

fellow could show a row of tombs in the church there that belonged to

his ancestors, and all that went to sour him a bit; but Francis, they

said, could never get at him—he always kept just on the right side of

the law—until one night the keepers found him at it in a wood right at

the end of the estate. I could show you the place now; it marches with

some land that used to belong to an uncle of mine. And you can imagine

there was a row; and this man Gawdy (that was the name, to be

sure—Gawdy; I thought I should get it—Gawdy), he was unlucky enough,

poor chap! to shoot a keeper. Well, that was what Francis wanted, and

grand juries—you know what they would have been then—and poor Gawdy was

strung up in double-quick time; and I’ve been shown the place he was

buried in, on the north side of the church—you know the way in that

part of the world: anyone that’s been hanged or made away with

themselves, they bury them that side. And the idea was that some friend

of Gawdy’s—not a relation, because he had none, poor devil! he was the

last of his line: kind of _spes ultima gentis_—must have planned to get

hold of Francis’s boy and put an end to _his_ line, too. I don’t

know—it’s rather an out-of-the-way thing for an Essex poacher to think

of—but, you know, I should say now it looks more as if old Gawdy had

managed the job himself. Booh! I hate to think of it! have some whisky,

Williams!”

The facts were communicated by Williams to Dennistoun, and by him to a

mixed company, of which I was one, and the Sadducean Professor of

Ophiology another. I am sorry to say that the latter, when asked what

he thought of it, only remarked: “Oh, those Bridgeford people will say

anything”—a sentiment which met with the reception it deserved.

I have only to add that the picture is now in the Ashleian Museum; that

it has been treated with a view to discovering whether sympathetic ink

has been used in it, but without effect; that Mr Britnell knew nothing

of it save that he was sure it was uncommon; and that, though carefully

watched, it has never been known to change again.

THE ASH-TREE

Everyone who has travelled over Eastern England knows the smaller

country-houses with which it is studded—the rather dank little

buildings, usually in the Italian style, surrounded with parks of some

eighty to a hundred acres. For me they have always had a very strong

attraction: with the grey paling of split oak, the noble trees, the

meres with their reed-beds, and the line of distant woods. Then, I like

the pillared portico—perhaps stuck on to a red-brick Queen Anne house

which has been faced with stucco to bring it into line with the

“Grecian” taste of the end of the eighteenth century; the hall inside,

going up to the roof, which hall ought always to be provided with a

gallery and a small organ. I like the library, too, where you may find

anything from a Psalter of the thirteenth century to a Shakespeare

quarto. I like the pictures, of course; and perhaps most of all I like

fancying what life in such a house was when it was first built, and in

the piping times of landlords’ prosperity, and not least now, when, if

money is not so plentiful, taste is more varied and life quite as

interesting. I wish to have one of these houses, and enough money to

keep it together and entertain my friends in it modestly.

But this is a digression. I have to tell you of a curious series of

events which happened in such a house as I have tried to describe. It

is Castringham Hall in Suffolk. I think a good deal has been done to

the building since the period of my story, but the essential features I

have sketched are still there—Italian portico, square block of white

house, older inside than out, park with fringe of woods, and mere. The

one feature that marked out the house from a score of others is gone.

As you looked at it from the park, you saw on the right a great old

ash-tree growing within half a dozen yards of the wall, and almost or

quite touching the building with its branches. I suppose it had stood

there ever since Castringham ceased to be a fortified place, and since

the moat was filled in and the Elizabethan dwelling-house built. At any

rate, it had well-nigh attained its full dimensions in the year 1690.

In that year the district in which the Hall is situated was the scene

of a number of witch-trials. It will be long, I think, before we arrive

at a just estimate of the amount of solid reason—if there was any—which

lay at the root of the universal fear of witches in old times. Whether

the persons accused of this offence really did imagine that they were

possessed of unusual power of any kind; or whether they had the will at

least, if not the power, of doing mischief to their neighbours; or

whether all the confessions, of which there are so many, were extorted

by the mere cruelty of the witch-finders—these are questions which are

not, I fancy, yet solved. And the present narrative gives me pause. I

cannot altogether sweep it away as mere invention. The reader must

judge for himself.

Castringham contributed a victim to the _auto-da-fé_. Mrs Mothersole

was her name, and she differed from the ordinary run of village witches

only in being rather better off and in a more influential position.

Efforts were made to save her by several reputable farmers of the

parish. They did their best to testify to her character, and showed

considerable anxiety as to the verdict of the jury.

But what seems to have been fatal to the woman was the evidence of the

then proprietor of Castringham Hall—Sir Matthew Fell. He deposed to

having watched her on three different occasions from his window, at the

full of the moon, gathering sprigs “from the ash-tree near my house”.

She had climbed into the branches, clad only in her shift, and was

cutting off small twigs with a peculiarly curved knife, and as she did

so she seemed to be talking to herself. On each occasion Sir Matthew

had done his best to capture the woman, but she had always taken alarm

at some accidental noise he had made, and all he could see when he got

down to the garden was a hare running across the path in the direction

of the village.

On the third night he had been at the pains to follow at his best

speed, and had gone straight to Mrs Mothersole’s house; but he had had

to wait a quarter of an hour battering at her door, and then she had

come out very cross, and apparently very sleepy, as if just out of bed;

and he had no good explanation to offer of his visit.

Mainly on this evidence, though there was much more of a less striking

and unusual kind from other parishioners, Mrs Mothersole was found

guilty and condemned to die. She was hanged a week after the trial,

with five or six more unhappy creatures, at Bury St Edmunds.

Sir Matthew Fell, then Deputy-Sheriff, was present at the execution. It

was a damp, drizzly March morning when the cart made its way up the

rough grass hill outside Northgate, where the gallows stood. The other

victims were apathetic or broken down with misery; but Mrs Mothersole

was, as in life so in death, of a very different temper. Her “poysonous

Rage”, as a reporter of the time puts it, “did so work upon the

Bystanders—yea, even upon the Hangman—that it was constantly affirmed

of all that saw her that she presented the living Aspect of a mad

Divell. Yet she offer’d no Resistance to the Officers of the Law; onely

she looked upon those that laid Hands upon her with so direfull and

venomous an Aspect that—as one of them afterwards assured me—the meer

Thought of it preyed inwardly upon his Mind for six Months after.”

However, all that she is reported to have said was the seemingly

meaningless words: “There will be guests at the Hall.” Which she

repeated more than once in an undertone.

Sir Matthew Fell was not unimpressed by the bearing of the woman. He

had some talk upon the matter with the Vicar of his parish, with whom

he travelled home after the assize business was over. His evidence at

the trial had not been very willingly given; he was not specially

infected with the witch-finding mania, but he declared, then and

afterwards, that he could not give any other account of the matter than

that he had given, and that he could not possibly have been mistaken as

to what he saw. The whole transaction had been repugnant to him, for he

was a man who liked to be on pleasant terms with those about him; but

he saw a duty to be done in this business, and he had done it. That

seems to have been the gist of his sentiments, and the Vicar applauded

it, as any reasonable man must have done.

A few weeks after, when the moon of May was at the full, Vicar and

Squire met again in the park, and walked to the Hall together. Lady

Fell was with her mother, who was dangerously ill, and Sir Matthew was

alone at home; so the Vicar, Mr Crome, was easily persuaded to take a

late supper at the Hall.

Sir Matthew was not very good company this evening. The talk ran

chiefly on family and parish matters, and, as luck would have it, Sir

Matthew made a memorandum in writing of certain wishes or intentions of

his regarding his estates, which afterwards proved exceedingly useful.

When Mr Crome thought of starting for home, about half past nine

o’clock, Sir Matthew and he took a preliminary turn on the gravelled

walk at the back of the house. The only incident that struck Mr Crome

was this: they were in sight of the ash-tree which I described as

growing near the windows of the building, when Sir Matthew stopped and

said:

“What is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash? It is never a

squirrel? They will all be in their nests by now.”

The Vicar looked and saw the moving creature, but he could make nothing

of its colour in the moonlight. The sharp outline, however, seen for an

instant, was imprinted on his brain, and he could have sworn, he said,

though it sounded foolish, that, squirrel or not, it had more than four

legs.

Still, not much was to be made of the momentary vision, and the two men

parted. They may have met since then, but it was not for a score of

years.

Next day Sir Matthew Fell was not downstairs at six in the morning, as

was his custom, nor at seven, nor yet at eight. Hereupon the servants

went and knocked at his chamber door. I need not prolong the

description of their anxious listenings and renewed batterings on the

panels. The door was opened at last from the outside, and they found

their master dead and black. So much you have guessed. That there were

any marks of violence did not at the moment appear; but the window was

open.

One of the men went to fetch the parson, and then by his directions

rode on to give notice to the coroner. Mr Crome himself went as quick

as he might to the Hall, and was shown to the room where the dead man

lay. He has left some notes among his papers which show how genuine a

respect and sorrow was felt for Sir Matthew, and there is also this

passage, which I transcribe for the sake of the light it throws upon

the course of events, and also upon the common beliefs of the time:

“There was not any the least Trace of an Entrance having been forc’d to

the Chamber: but the Casement stood open, as my poor Friend would

always have it in this Season. He had his Evening Drink of small Ale in

a silver vessel of about a pint measure, and tonight had not drunk it

out. This Drink was examined by the Physician from Bury, a Mr Hodgkins,

who could not, however, as he afterwards declar’d upon his Oath, before

the Coroner’s quest, discover that any matter of a venomous kind was

present in it. For, as was natural, in the great Swelling and Blackness

of the Corpse, there was talk made among the Neighbours of Poyson. The

Body was very much Disorder’d as it laid in the Bed, being twisted

after so extream a sort as gave too probable Conjecture that my worthy

Friend and Patron had expir’d in great Pain and Agony. And what is as

yet unexplain’d, and to myself the Argument of some Horrid and Artfull

Designe in the Perpetrators of this Barbarous Murther, was this, that

the Women which were entrusted with the laying-out of the Corpse and

washing it, being both sad Persons and very well Respected in their

Mournfull Profession, came to me in a great Pain and Distress both of

Mind and Body, saying, what was indeed confirmed upon the first View,

that they had no sooner touch’d the Breast of the Corpse with their

naked Hands than they were sensible of a more than ordinary violent

Smart and Acheing in their Palms, which, with their whole Forearms, in

no long time swell’d so immoderately, the Pain still continuing, that,

as afterwards proved, during many weeks they were forc’d to lay by the

exercise of their Calling; and yet no mark seen on the Skin.

“Upon hearing this, I sent for the Physician, who was still in the

House, and we made as carefull a Proof as we were able by the Help of a

small Magnifying Lens of Crystal of the condition of the Skinn on this

Part of the Body: but could not detect with the Instrument we had any

Matter of Importance beyond a couple of small Punctures or Pricks,

which we then concluded were the Spotts by which the Poyson might be

introduced, remembering that Ring of _Pope Borgia_, with other known

Specimens of the Horrid Art of the Italian Poysoners of the last age.

“So much is to be said of the Symptoms seen on the Corpse. As to what I

am to add, it is meerly my own Experiment, and to be left to Posterity

to judge whether there be anything of Value therein. There was on the

Table by the Beddside a Bible of the small size, in which my

Friend—punctuall as in Matters of less Moment, so in this more weighty

one—used nightly, and upon his First Rising, to read a sett Portion.

And I taking it up—not without a Tear duly paid to him wich from the

Study of this poorer Adumbration was now pass’d to the contemplation of

its great Originall—it came into my Thoughts, as at such moments of

Helplessness we are prone to catch at any the least Glimmer that makes

promise of Light, to make trial of that old and by many accounted

Superstitious Practice of drawing the _Sortes;_ of which a Principall

Instance, in the case of his late Sacred Majesty the Blessed Martyr

King _Charles_ and my Lord _Falkland_, was now much talked of. I must

needs admit that by my Trial not much Assistance was afforded me: yet,

as the Cause and Origin of these Dreadfull Events may hereafter be

search’d out, I set down the Results, in the case it may be found that

they pointed the true Quarter of the Mischief to a quicker Intelligence

than my own.

“I made, then, three trials, opening the Book and placing my Finger

upon certain Words: which gave in the first these words, from Luke

xiii. 7, _Cut it down_; in the second, Isaiah xiii. 20, _It shall never

be inhabited_; and upon the third Experiment, Job xxxix. 30, _Her young

ones also suck up blood_.”

This is all that need be quoted from Mr Crome’s papers. Sir Matthew

Fell was duly coffined and laid into the earth, and his funeral sermon,

preached by Mr Crome on the following Sunday, has been printed under

the title of “The Unsearchable Way; or, England’s Danger and the

Malicious Dealings of Antichrist”, it being the Vicar’s view, as well

as that most commonly held in the neighbourhood, that the Squire was

the victim of a recrudescence of the Popish Plot.

His son, Sir Matthew the second, succeeded to the title and estates.

And so ends the first act of the Castringham tragedy. It is to be

mentioned, though the fact is not surprising, that the new Baronet did

not occupy the room in which his father had died. Nor, indeed, was it

slept in by anyone but an occasional visitor during the whole of his

occupation. He died in 1735, and I do not find that anything particular

marked his reign, save a curiously constant mortality among his cattle

and live-stock in general, which showed a tendency to increase slightly

as time went on.

Those who are interested in the details will find a statistical account

in a letter to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of 1772, which draws the

facts from the Baronet’s own papers. He put an end to it at last by a

very simple expedient, that of shutting up all his beasts in sheds at

night, and keeping no sheep in his park. For he had noticed that

nothing was ever attacked that spent the night indoors. After that the

disorder confined itself to wild birds, and beasts of chase. But as we

have no good account of the symptoms, and as all-night watching was

quite unproductive of any clue, I do not dwell on what the Suffolk

farmers called the “Castringham sickness”.

The second Sir Matthew died in 1735, as I said, and was duly succeeded

by his son, Sir Richard. It was in his time that the great family pew

was built out on the north side of the parish church. So large were the

Squire’s ideas that several of the graves on that unhallowed side of

the building had to be disturbed to satisfy his requirements. Among

them was that of Mrs Mothersole, the position of which was accurately

known, thanks to a note on a plan of the church and yard, both made by

Mr Crome.

A certain amount of interest was excited in the village when it was

known that the famous witch, who was still remembered by a few, was to

be exhumed. And the feeling of surprise, and indeed disquiet, was very

strong when it was found that, though her coffin was fairly sound and

unbroken, there was no trace whatever inside it of body, bones, or

dust. Indeed, it is a curious phenomenon, for at the time of her

burying no such things were dreamt of as resurrection-men, and it is

difficult to conceive any rational motive for stealing a body otherwise

than for the uses of the dissecting-room.

The incident revived for a time all the stories of witch-trials and of

the exploits of the witches, dormant for forty years, and Sir Richard’s

orders that the coffin should be burnt were thought by a good many to

be rather foolhardy, though they were duly carried out.

Sir Richard was a pestilent innovator, it is certain. Before his time

the Hall had been a fine block of the mellowest red brick; but Sir

Richard had travelled in Italy and become infected with the Italian

taste, and, having more money than his predecessors, he determined to

leave an Italian palace where he had found an English house. So stucco

and ashlar masked the brick; some indifferent Roman marbles were

planted about in the entrance-hall and gardens; a reproduction of the

Sibyl’s temple at Tivoli was erected on the opposite bank of the mere;

and Castringham took on an entirely new, and, I must say, a less

engaging, aspect. But it was much admired, and served as a model to a

good many of the neighbouring gentry in after-years.

One morning (it was in 1754) Sir Richard woke after a night of

discomfort. It had been windy, and his chimney had smoked persistently,

and yet it was so cold that he must keep up a fire. Also something had

so rattled about the window that no man could get a moment’s peace.

Further, there was the prospect of several guests of position arriving

in the course of the day, who would expect sport of some kind, and the

inroads of the distemper (which continued among his game) had been

lately so serious that he was afraid for his reputation as a

game-preserver. But what really touched him most nearly was the other

matter of his sleepless night. He could certainly not sleep in that

room again.

That was the chief subject of his meditations at breakfast, and after

it he began a systematic examination of the rooms to see which would

suit his notions best. It was long before he found one. This had a

window with an eastern aspect and that with a northern; this door the

servants would be always passing, and he did not like the bedstead in

that. No, he must have a room with a western look-out, so that the sun

could not wake him early, and it must be out of the way of the business

of the house. The housekeeper was at the end of her resources.

“Well, Sir Richard,” she said, “you know that there is but the one room

like that in the house.”

“Which may that be?” said Sir Richard.

“And that is Sir Matthew’s—the West Chamber.”

“Well, put me in there, for there I’ll lie tonight,” said her master.

“Which way is it? Here, to be sure;” and he hurried off.

“Oh, Sir Richard, but no one has slept there these forty years. The air

has hardly been changed since Sir Matthew died there.”

Thus she spoke, and rustled after him.

“Come, open the door, Mrs Chiddock. I’ll see the chamber, at least.”

So it was opened, and, indeed, the smell was very close and earthy. Sir

Richard crossed to the window, and, impatiently, as was his wont, threw

the shutters back, and flung open the casement. For this end of the

house was one which the alterations had barely touched, grown up as it

was with the great ash-tree, and being otherwise concealed from view.

“Air it, Mrs Chiddock, all today, and move my bed-furniture in in the

afternoon. Put the Bishop of Kilmore in my old room.”

“Pray, Sir Richard,” said a new voice, breaking in on this speech,

“might I have the favour of a moment’s interview?”

Sir Richard turned round and saw a man in black in the doorway, who

bowed.

“I must ask your indulgence for this intrusion, Sir Richard. You will,

perhaps, hardly remember me. My name is William Crome, and my

grandfather was Vicar here in your grandfather’s time.”

“Well, sir,” said Sir Richard, “the name of Crome is always a passport

to Castringham. I am glad to renew a friendship of two generations”

standing. In what can I serve you? for your hour of calling—and, if I

do not mistake you, your bearing—shows you to be in some haste.”

“That is no more than the truth, sir. I am riding from Norwich to Bury

St Edmunds with what haste I can make, and I have called in on my way

to leave with you some papers which we have but just come upon in

looking over what my grandfather left at his death. It is thought you

may find some matters of family interest in them.”

“You are mighty obliging, Mr Crome, and, if you will be so good as to

follow me to the parlour, and drink a glass of wine, we will take a

first look at these same papers together. And you, Mrs Chiddock, as I

said, be about airing this chamber…. Yes, it is here my grandfather

died…. Yes, the tree, perhaps, does make the place a little dampish….

No; I do not wish to listen to any more. Make no difficulties, I beg.

You have your orders—go. Will you follow me, sir?”

They went to the study. The packet which young Mr Crome had brought—he

was then just become a Fellow of Clare Hall in Cambridge, I may say,

and subsequently brought out a respectable edition of

Polyaenus—contained among other things the notes which the old Vicar

had made upon the occasion of Sir Matthew Fell’s death. And for the

first time Sir Richard was confronted with the enigmatical _Sortes

Biblicæ_ which you have heard. They amused him a good deal.

“Well,” he said, “my grandfather’s Bible gave one prudent piece of

advice—_Cut it down_. If that stands for the ash-tree, he may rest

assured I shall not neglect it. Such a nest of catarrhs and agues was

never seen.”

The parlour contained the family books, which, pending the arrival of a

collection which Sir Richard had made in Italy, and the building of a

proper room to receive them, were not many in number.

Sir Richard looked up from the paper to the bookcase.

“I wonder,” says he, “whether the old prophet is there yet? I fancy I

see him.”

Crossing the room, he took out a dumpy Bible, which, sure enough, bore

on the flyleaf the inscription: “To Matthew Fell, from his Loving

Godmother, Anne Aldous, 2 September, 1659.”

“It would be no bad plan to test him again, Mr Crome. I will wager we

get a couple of names in the Chronicles. H’m! what have we here? ‘Thou

shalt seek me in the morning, and I shall not be.’ Well, well! Your

grandfather would have made a fine omen of that, hey? No more prophets

for me! They are all in a tale. And now, Mr Crome, I am infinitely

obliged to you for your packet. You will, I fear, be impatient to get

on. Pray allow me—another glass.”

So with offers of hospitality, which were genuinely meant (for Sir

Richard thought well of the young man’s address and manner), they

parted.

In the afternoon came the guests—the Bishop of Kilmore, Lady Mary

Hervey, Sir William Kentfield, etc. Dinner at five, wine, cards,

supper, and dispersal to bed.

Next morning Sir Richard is disinclined to take his gun with the rest.

He talks with the Bishop of Kilmore. This prelate, unlike a good many

of the Irish Bishops of his day, had visited his see, and, indeed,

resided there, for some considerable time. This morning, as the two

were walking along the terrace and talking over the alterations and

improvements in the house, the Bishop said, pointing to the window of

the West Room:

“You could never get one of my Irish flock to occupy that room, Sir

Richard.”

“Why is that, my lord? It is, in fact, my own.”

“Well, our Irish peasantry will always have it that it brings the worst

of luck to sleep near an ash-tree, and you have a fine growth of ash

not two yards from your chamber window. Perhaps,” the Bishop went on,

with a smile, “it has given you a touch of its quality already, for you

do not seem, if I may say it, so much the fresher for your night’s rest

as your friends would like to see you.”

“That, or something else, it is true, cost me my sleep from twelve to

four, my lord. But the tree is to come down tomorrow, so I shall not

hear much more from it.”

“I applaud your determination. It can hardly be wholesome to have the

air you breathe strained, as it were, through all that leafage.”

“Your lordship is right there, I think. But I had not my window open

last night. It was rather the noise that went on—no doubt from the

twigs sweeping the glass—that kept me open-eyed.”

“I think that can hardly be, Sir Richard. Here—you see it from this

point. None of these nearest branches even can touch your casement

unless there were a gale, and there was none of that last night. They

miss the panes by a foot.”

“No, sir, true. What, then, will it be, I wonder, that scratched and

rustled so—ay, and covered the dust on my sill with lines and marks?”

At last they agreed that the rats must have come up through the ivy.

That was the Bishop’s idea, and Sir Richard jumped at it.

So the day passed quietly, and night came, and the party dispersed to

their rooms, and wished Sir Richard a better night.

And now we are in his bedroom, with the light out and the Squire in

bed. The room is over the kitchen, and the night outside still and

warm, so the window stands open.

There is very little light about the bedstead, but there is a strange

movement there; it seems as if Sir Richard were moving his head rapidly

to and fro with only the slightest possible sound. And now you would

guess, so deceptive is the half-darkness, that he had several heads,

round and brownish, which move back and forward, even as low as his

chest. It is a horrible illusion. Is it nothing more? There! something

drops off the bed with a soft plump, like a kitten, and is out of the

window in a flash; another—four—and after that there is quiet again.

_“Thou shalt seek me in the morning, and I shall not be.”_

As with Sir Matthew, so with Sir Richard—dead and black in his bed!

A pale and silent party of guests and servants gathered under the

window when the news was known. Italian poisoners, Popish emissaries,

infected air—all these and more guesses were hazarded, and the Bishop

of Kilmore looked at the tree, in the fork of whose lower boughs a

white tom-cat was crouching, looking down the hollow which years had

gnawed in the trunk. It was watching something inside the tree with

great interest.

Suddenly it got up and craned over the hole. Then a bit of the edge on

which it stood gave way, and it went slithering in. Everyone looked up

at the noise of the fall.

It is known to most of us that a cat can cry; but few of us have heard,

I hope, such a yell as came out of the trunk of the great ash. Two or

three screams there were—the witnesses are not sure which—and then a

slight and muffled noise of some commotion or struggling was all that

came. But Lady Mary Hervey fainted outright, and the housekeeper

stopped her ears and fled till she fell on the terrace.

The Bishop of Kilmore and Sir William Kentfield stayed. Yet even they

were daunted, though it was only at the cry of a cat; and Sir William

swallowed once or twice before he could say:

“There is something more than we know of in that tree, my lord. I am

for an instant search.”

And this was agreed upon. A ladder was brought, and one of the

gardeners went up, and, looking down the hollow, could detect nothing

but a few dim indications of something moving. They got a lantern, and

let it down by a rope.

“We must get at the bottom of this. My life upon it, my lord, but the

secret of these terrible deaths is there.”

Up went the gardener again with the lantern, and let it down the hole

cautiously. They saw the yellow light upon his face as he bent over,

and saw his face struck with an incredulous terror and loathing before

he cried out in a dreadful voice and fell back from the ladder—where,

happily, he was caught by two of the men—letting the lantern fall

inside the tree.

He was in a dead faint, and it was some time before any word could be

got from him.

By then they had something else to look at. The lantern must have

broken at the bottom, and the light in it caught upon dry leaves and

rubbish that lay there, for in a few minutes a dense smoke began to

come up, and then flame; and, to be short, the tree was in a blaze.

The bystanders made a ring at some yards’ distance, and Sir William and

the Bishop sent men to get what weapons and tools they could; for,

clearly, whatever might be using the tree as its lair would be forced

out by the fire.

So it was. First, at the fork, they saw a round body covered with

fire—the size of a man’s head—appear very suddenly, then seem to

collapse and fall back. This, five or six times; then a similar ball

leapt into the air and fell on the grass, where after a moment it lay

still. The Bishop went as near as he dared to it, and saw—what but the

remains of an enormous spider, veinous and seared! And, as the fire

burned lower down, more terrible bodies like this began to break out

from the trunk, and it was seen that these were covered with greyish

hair.

All that day the ash burned, and until it fell to pieces the men stood

about it, and from time to time killed the brutes as they darted out.

At last there was a long interval when none appeared, and they

cautiously closed in and examined the roots of the tree.

“They found,” says the Bishop of Kilmore, “below it a rounded hollow

place in the earth, wherein were two or three bodies of these creatures

that had plainly been smothered by the smoke; and, what is to me more

curious, at the side of this den, against the wall, was crouching the

anatomy or skeleton of a human being, with the skin dried upon the

bones, having some remains of black hair, which was pronounced by those

that examined it to be undoubtedly the body of a woman, and clearly

dead for a period of fifty years.”

NUMBER 13

Among the towns of Jutland, Viborg justly holds a high place. It is the

seat of a bishopric; it has a handsome but almost entirely new

cathedral, a charming garden, a lake of great beauty, and many storks.

Near it is Hald, accounted one of the prettiest things in Denmark; and

hard by is Finderup, where Marsk Stig murdered King Erik Glipping on St

Cecilia’s Day, in the year 1286. Fifty-six blows of square-headed iron

maces were traced on Erik’s skull when his tomb was opened in the

seventeenth century. But I am not writing a guide-book.

There are good hotels in Viborg—Preisler’s and the Phœnix are all that

can be desired. But my cousin, whose experiences I have to tell you

now, went to the Golden Lion the first time that he visited Viborg. He

has not been there since, and the following pages will, perhaps,

explain the reason of his abstention.

The Golden Lion is one of the very few houses in the town that were not

destroyed in the great fire of 1726, which practically demolished the

cathedral, the Sognekirke, the Raadhuus, and so much else that was old

and interesting. It is a great red-brick house—that is, the front is of

brick, with corbie steps on the gables and a text over the door; but

the courtyard into which the omnibus drives is of black and white wood

and plaster.

The sun was declining in the heavens when my cousin walked up to the

door, and the light smote full upon the imposing façade of the house.

He was delighted with the old-fashioned aspect of the place, and

promised himself a thoroughly satisfactory and amusing stay in an inn

so typical of old Jutland.

It was not business in the ordinary sense of the word that had brought

Mr Anderson to Viborg. He was engaged upon some researches into the

Church history of Denmark, and it had come to his knowledge that in the

Rigsarkiv of Viborg there were papers, saved from the fire, relating to

the last days of Roman Catholicism in the country. He proposed,

therefore, to spend a considerable time—perhaps as much as a fortnight

or three weeks—in examining and copying these, and he hoped that the

Golden Lion would be able to give him a room of sufficient size to

serve alike as a bedroom and a study. His wishes were explained to the

landlord, and, after a certain amount of thought, the latter suggested

that perhaps it might be the best way for the gentleman to look at one

or two of the larger rooms and pick one for himself. It seemed a good

idea.

The top floor was soon rejected as entailing too much getting upstairs

after the day’s work; the second floor contained no room of exactly the

dimensions required; but on the first floor there was a choice of two

or three rooms which would, so far as size went, suit admirably.

The landlord was strongly in favour of Number 17, but Mr Anderson

pointed out that its windows commanded only the blank wall of the next

house, and that it would be very dark in the afternoon. Either Number

12 or Number 14 would be better, for both of them looked on the street,

and the bright evening light and the pretty view would more than

compensate him for the additional amount of noise.

Eventually Number 12 was selected. Like its neighbours, it had three

windows, all on one side of the room; it was fairly high and unusually

long. There was, of course, no fireplace, but the stove was handsome

and rather old—a cast-iron erection, on the side of which was a

representation of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, and the inscription, “1

Bog Mose, Cap. 22,” above. Nothing else in the room was remarkable; the

only interesting picture was an old coloured print of the town, date

about 1820.

Supper-time was approaching, but when Anderson, refreshed by the

ordinary ablutions, descended the staircase, there were still a few

minutes before the bell rang. He devoted them to examining the list of

his fellow-lodgers. As is usual in Denmark, their names were displayed

on a large blackboard, divided into columns and lines, the numbers of

the rooms being painted in at the beginning of each line. The list was

not exciting. There was an advocate, or Sagförer, a German, and some

bagmen from Copenhagen. The one and only point which suggested any food

for thought was the absence of any Number 13 from the tale of the

rooms, and even this was a thing which Anderson had already noticed

half a dozen times in his experience of Danish hotels. He could not

help wondering whether the objection to that particular number, common

as it is, was so widespread and so strong as to make it difficult to

let a room so ticketed, and he resolved to ask the landlord if he and

his colleagues in the profession had actually met with many clients who

refused to be accommodated in the thirteenth room.

He had nothing to tell me (I am giving the story as I heard it from

him) about what passed at supper, and the evening, which was spent in

unpacking and arranging his clothes, books, and papers, was not more

eventful. Towards eleven o’clock he resolved to go to bed, but with

him, as with a good many other people nowadays, an almost necessary

preliminary to bed, if he meant to sleep, was the reading of a few

pages of print, and he now remembered that the particular book which he

had been reading in the train, and which alone would satisfy him at

that present moment, was in the pocket of his great-coat, then hanging

on a peg outside the dining-room.

To run down and secure it was the work of a moment, and, as the

passages were by no means dark, it was not difficult for him to find

his way back to his own door. So, at least, he thought; but when he

arrived there, and turned the handle, the door entirely refused to

open, and he caught the sound of a hasty movement towards it from

within. He had tried the wrong door, of course. Was his own room to the

right or to the left? He glanced at the number: it was 13. His room

would be on the left; and so it was. And not before he had been in bed

for some minutes, had read his wonted three or four pages of his book,

blown out his light, and turned over to go to sleep, did it occur to

him that, whereas on the blackboard of the hotel there had been no

Number 13, there was undoubtedly a room numbered 13 in the hotel. He

felt rather sorry he had not chosen it for his own. Perhaps he might

have done the landlord a little service by occupying it, and given him

the chance of saying that a well-born English gentleman had lived in it

for three weeks and liked it very much. But probably it was used as a

servant’s room or something of the kind. After all, it was most likely

not so large or good a room as his own. And he looked drowsily about

the room, which was fairly perceptible in the half-light from the

street-lamp. It was a curious effect, he thought. Rooms usually look

larger in a dim light than a full one, but this seemed to have

contracted in length and grown proportionately higher. Well, well!

sleep was more important than these vague ruminations—and to sleep he

went.

On the day after his arrival Anderson attacked the Rigsarkiv of Viborg.

He was, as one might expect in Denmark, kindly received, and access to

all that he wished to see was made as easy for him as possible. The

documents laid before him were far more numerous and interesting than

he had at all anticipated. Besides official papers, there was a large

bundle of correspondence relating to Bishop Jörgen Friis, the last

Roman Catholic who held the see, and in these there cropped up many

amusing and what are called “intimate” details of private life and

individual character. There was much talk of a house owned by the

Bishop, but not inhabited by him, in the town. Its tenant was

apparently somewhat of a scandal and a stumbling-block to the reforming

party. He was a disgrace, they wrote, to the city; he practised secret

and wicked arts, and had sold his soul to the enemy. It was of a piece

with the gross corruption and superstition of the Babylonish Church

that such a viper and blood-sucking _Troldmand_ should be patronized

and harboured by the Bishop. The Bishop met these reproaches boldly; he

protested his own abhorrence of all such things as secret arts, and

required his antagonists to bring the matter before the proper court—of

course, the spiritual court—and sift it to the bottom. No one could be

more ready and willing than himself to condemn Mag Nicolas Francken if

the evidence showed him to have been guilty of any of the crimes

informally alleged against him.

Anderson had not time to do more than glance at the next letter of the

Protestant leader, Rasmus Nielsen, before the record office was closed

for the day, but he gathered its general tenor, which was to the effect

that Christian men were now no longer bound by the decisions of Bishops

of Rome, and that the Bishop’s Court was not, and could not be, a fit

or competent tribunal to judge so grave and weighty a cause.

On leaving the office, Mr Anderson was accompanied by the old gentleman

who presided over it, and, as they walked, the conversation very

naturally turned to the papers of which I have just been speaking.

Herr Scavenius, the Archivist of Viborg, though very well informed as

to the general run of the documents under his charge, was not a

specialist in those of the Reformation period. He was much interested

in what Anderson had to tell him about them. He looked forward with

great pleasure, he said, to seeing the publication in which Mr Anderson

spoke of embodying their contents. “This house of the Bishop Friis,” he

added, “it is a great puzzle to me where it can have stood. I have

studied carefully the topography of old Viborg, but it is most

unlucky—of the old terrier of the Bishop’s property which was made in

1560, and of which we have the greater part in the Arkiv, just the

piece which had the list of the town property is missing. Never mind.

Perhaps I shall some day succeed to find him.”

After taking some exercise—I forget exactly how or where—Anderson went

back to the Golden Lion, his supper, his game of patience, and his bed.

On the way to his room it occurred to him that he had forgotten to talk

to the landlord about the omission of Number 13 from the hotel board,

and also that he might as well make sure that Number 13 did actually

exist before he made any reference to the matter.

The decision was not difficult to arrive at. There was the door with

its number as plain as could be, and work of some kind was evidently

going on inside it, for as he neared the door he could hear footsteps

and voices, or a voice, within. During the few seconds in which he

halted to make sure of the number, the footsteps ceased, seemingly very

near the door, and he was a little startled at hearing a quick hissing

breathing as of a person in strong excitement. He went on to his own

room, and again he was surprised to find how much smaller it seemed now

than it had when he selected it. It was a slight disappointment, but

only slight. If he found it really not large enough, he could very

easily shift to another. In the meantime he wanted something—as far as

I remember it was a pocket-handkerchief—out of his portmanteau, which

had been placed by the porter on a very inadequate trestle or stool

against the wall at the farthest end of the room from his bed. Here was

a very curious thing: the portmanteau was not to be seen. It had been

moved by officious servants; doubtless the contents had been put in the

wardrobe. No, none of them were there. This was vexatious. The idea of

a theft he dismissed at once. Such things rarely happen in Denmark, but

some piece of stupidity had certainly been performed (which is not so

uncommon), and the _stuepige_ must be severely spoken to. Whatever it

was that he wanted, it was not so necessary to his comfort that he

could not wait till the morning for it, and he therefore settled not to

ring the bell and disturb the servants. He went to the window—the

right-hand window it was—and looked out on the quiet street. There was

a tall building opposite, with large spaces of dead wall; no

passers-by; a dark night; and very little to be seen of any kind.

The light was behind him, and he could see his own shadow clearly cast

on the wall opposite. Also the shadow of the bearded man in Number 11

on the left, who passed to and fro in shirtsleeves once or twice, and

was seen first brushing his hair, and later on in a nightgown. Also the

shadow of the occupant of Number 13 on the right. This might be more

interesting. Number 13 was, like himself, leaning on his elbows on the

window-sill looking out into the street. He seemed to be a tall thin

man—or was it by any chance a woman?—at least, it was someone who

covered his or her head with some kind of drapery before going to bed,

and, he thought, must be possessed of a red lamp-shade—and the lamp

must be flickering very much. There was a distinct playing up and down

of a dull red light on the opposite wall. He craned out a little to see

if he could make any more of the figure, but beyond a fold of some

light, perhaps white, material on the window-sill he could see nothing.

Now came a distant step in the street, and its approach seemed to

recall Number 13 to a sense of his exposed position, for very swiftly

and suddenly he swept aside from the window, and his red light went

out. Anderson, who had been smoking a cigarette, laid the end of it on

the window-sill and went to bed.

Next morning he was woken by the _stuepige_ with hot water, etc. He

roused himself, and after thinking out the correct Danish words, said

as distinctly as he could:

“You must not move my portmanteau. Where is it?”

As is not uncommon, the maid laughed, and went away without making any

distinct answer.

Anderson, rather irritated, sat up in bed, intending to call her back,

but he remained sitting up, staring straight in front of him. There was

his portmanteau on its trestle, exactly where he had seen the porter

put it when he first arrived. This was a rude shock for a man who

prided himself on his accuracy of observation. How it could possibly

have escaped him the night before he did not pretend to understand; at

any rate, there it was now.

The daylight showed more than the portmanteau; it let the true

proportions of the room with its three windows appear, and satisfied

its tenant that his choice after all had not been a bad one. When he

was almost dressed he walked to the middle one of the three windows to

look out at the weather. Another shock awaited him. Strangely

unobservant he must have been last night. He could have sworn ten times

over that he had been smoking at the right-hand window the last thing

before he went to bed, and here was his cigarette-end on the sill of

the middle window.

He started to go down to breakfast. Rather late, but Number 13 was

later: here were his boots still outside his door—a gentleman’s boots.

So then Number 13 was a man, not a woman. Just then he caught sight of

the number on the door. It was 14. He thought he must have passed

Number 13 without noticing it. Three stupid mistakes in twelve hours

were too much for a methodical, accurate-minded man, so he turned back

to make sure. The next number to 14 was number 12, his own room. There

was no Number 13 at all.

After some minutes devoted to a careful consideration of everything he

had had to eat and drink during the last twenty-four hours, Anderson

decided to give the question up. If his eyes or his brain were giving

way he would have plenty of opportunities for ascertaining that fact;

if not, then he was evidently being treated to a very interesting

experience. In either case the development of events would certainly be

worth watching.

During the day he continued his examination of the episcopal

correspondence which I have already summarized. To his disappointment,

it was incomplete. Only one other letter could be found which referred

to the affair of Mag Nicolas Francken. It was from the Bishop Jörgen

Friis to Rasmus Nielsen. He said:

“Although we are not in the least degree inclined to assent to your

judgement concerning our court, and shall be prepared if need be to

withstand you to the uttermost in that behalf, yet forasmuch as our

trusty and well-beloved Mag Nicolas Francken, against whom you have

dared to allege certain false and malicious charges, hath been suddenly

removed from among us, it is apparent that the question for this time

falls. But forasmuch as you further allege that the Apostle and

Evangelist St John in his heavenly Apocalypse describes the Holy Roman

Church under the guise and symbol of the Scarlet Woman, be it known to

you,” etc.

Search as he might, Anderson could find no sequel to this letter nor

any clue to the cause or manner of the “removal” of the _casus belli_.

He could only suppose that Francken had died suddenly; and as there

were only two days between the date of Nielsen’s last letter—when

Francken was evidently still in being—and that of the Bishop’s letter,

the death must have been completely unexpected.

In the afternoon he paid a short visit to Hald, and took his tea at

Baekkelund; nor could he notice, though he was in a somewhat nervous

frame of mind, that there was any indication of such a failure of eye

or brain as his experiences of the morning had led him to fear.

At supper he found himself next to the landlord.

“What,” he asked him, after some indifferent conversation, “is the

reason why in most of the hotels one visits in this country the number

thirteen is left out of the list of rooms? I see you have none here.”

The landlord seemed amused.

“To think that you should have noticed a thing like that! I’ve thought

about it once or twice myself, to tell the truth. An educated man, I’ve

said, has no business with these superstitious notions. I was brought

up myself here in the high school of Viborg, and our old master was

always a man to set his face against anything of that kind. He’s been

dead now this many years—a fine upstanding man he was, and ready with

his hands as well as his head. I recollect us boys, one snowy day—”

Here he plunged into reminiscence.

“Then you don’t think there is any particular objection to having a

Number 13?” said Anderson.

“Ah! to be sure. Well, you understand, I was brought up to the business

by my poor old father. He kept an hotel in Aarhuus first, and then,

when we were born, he moved to Viborg here, which was his native place,

and had the Phœnix here until he died. That was in 1876. Then I started

business in Silkeborg, and only the year before last I moved into this

house.”

Then followed more details as to the state of the house and business

when first taken over.

“And when you came here, was there a Number 13?”

“No, no. I was going to tell you about that. You see, in a place like

this, the commercial class—the travellers—are what we have to provide

for in general. And put them in Number 13? Why, they’d as soon sleep in

the street, or sooner. As far as I’m concerned myself, it wouldn’t make

a penny difference to me what the number of my room was, and so I’ve

often said to them; but they stick to it that it brings them bad luck.

Quantities of stories they have among them of men that have slept in a

Number 13 and never been the same again, or lost their best customers,

or—one thing and another,” said the landlord, after searching for a

more graphic phrase.

“Then, what do you use your Number 13 for?” said Anderson, conscious as

he said the words of a curious anxiety quite disproportionate to the

importance of the question.

“My Number 13? Why, don’t I tell you that there isn’t such a thing in

the house? I thought you might have noticed that. If there was it would

be next door to your own room.”

“Well, yes; only I happened to think—that is, I fancied last night that

I had seen a door numbered thirteen in that passage; and, really, I am

almost certain I must have been right, for I saw it the night before as

well.”

Of course, Herr Kristensen laughed this notion to scorn, as Anderson

had expected, and emphasized with much iteration the fact that no

Number 13 existed or had existed before him in that hotel.

Anderson was in some ways relieved by his certainty, but still puzzled,

and he began to think that the best way to make sure whether he had

indeed been subject to an illusion or not was to invite the landlord to

his room to smoke a cigar later on in the evening. Some photographs of

English towns which he had with him formed a sufficiently good excuse.

Herr Kristensen was flattered by the invitation, and most willingly

accepted it. At about ten o’clock he was to make his appearance, but

before that Anderson had some letters to write, and retired for the

purpose of writing them. He almost blushed to himself at confessing it,

but he could not deny that it was the fact that he was becoming quite

nervous about the question of the existence of Number 13; so much so

that he approached his room by way of Number 11, in order that he might

not be obliged to pass the door, or the place where the door ought to

be. He looked quickly and suspiciously about the room when he entered

it, but there was nothing, beyond that indefinable air of being smaller

than usual, to warrant any misgivings. There was no question of the

presence or absence of his portmanteau tonight. He had himself emptied

it of its contents and lodged it under his bed. With a certain effort

he dismissed the thought of Number 13 from his mind, and sat down to

his writing.

His neighbours were quiet enough. Occasionally a door opened in the

passage and a pair of boots was thrown out, or a bagman walked past

humming to himself, and outside, from time to time, a cart thundered

over the atrocious cobble-stones, or a quick step hurried along the

flags.

Anderson finished his letters, ordered in whisky and soda, and then

went to the window and studied the dead wall opposite and the shadows

upon it.

As far as he could remember, Number 14 had been occupied by the lawyer,

a staid man, who said little at meals, being generally engaged in

studying a small bundle of papers beside his plate. Apparently,

however, he was in the habit of giving vent to his animal spirits when

alone. Why else should he be dancing? The shadow from the next room

evidently showed that he was. Again and again his thin form crossed the

window, his arms waved, and a gaunt leg was kicked up with surprising

agility. He seemed to be barefooted, and the floor must be well laid,

for no sound betrayed his movements. Sagförer Herr Anders Jensen,

dancing at ten o’clock at night in a hotel bedroom, seemed a fitting

subject for a historical painting in the grand style; and Anderson’s

thoughts, like those of Emily in the “Mysteries of Udolpho”, began to

“arrange themselves in the following lines”:

“When I return to my hotel,

At ten o’clock p.m.,

The waiters think I am unwell;

I do not care for them.

But when I’ve locked my chamber door,

And put my boots outside,

I dance all night upon the floor.

And even if my neighbours swore,

I’d go on dancing all the more,

For I’m acquainted with the law,

And in despite of all their jaw,

Their protests I deride.”

Had not the landlord at this moment knocked at the door, it is probable

that quite a long poem might have been laid before the reader. To judge

from his look of surprise when he found himself in the room, Herr

Kristensen was struck, as Anderson had been, by something unusual in

its aspect. But he made no remark. Anderson’s photographs interested

him mightily, and formed the text of many autobiographical discourses.

Nor is it quite clear how the conversation could have been diverted

into the desired channel of Number 13, had not the lawyer at this

moment begun to sing, and to sing in a manner which could leave no

doubt in anyone’s mind that he was either exceedingly drunk or raving

mad. It was a high, thin voice that they heard, and it seemed dry, as

if from long disuse. Of words or tune there was no question. It went

sailing up to a surprising height, and was carried down with a

despairing moan as of a winter wind in a hollow chimney, or an organ

whose wind fails suddenly. It was a really horrible sound, and Anderson

felt that if he had been alone he must have fled for refuge and society

to some neighbour bagman’s room.

The landlord sat open-mouthed.

“I don’t understand it,” he said at last, wiping his forehead. “It is

dreadful. I have heard it once before, but I made sure it was a cat.”

“Is he mad?” said Anderson.

“He must be; and what a sad thing! Such a good customer, too, and so

successful in his business, by what I hear, and a young family to bring

up.”

Just then came an impatient knock at the door, and the knocker entered,

without waiting to be asked. It was the lawyer, in _déshabille_ and

very rough-haired; and very angry he looked.

“I beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but I should be much obliged if you

would kindly desist—”

Here he stopped, for it was evident that neither of the persons before

him was responsible for the disturbance; and after a moment’s lull it

swelled forth again more wildly than before.

“But what in the name of Heaven does it mean?” broke out the lawyer.

“Where is it? Who is it? Am I going out of my mind?”

“Surely, Herr Jensen, it comes from your room next door? Isn’t there a

cat or something stuck in the chimney?”

This was the best that occurred to Anderson to say, and he realized its

futility as he spoke; but anything was better than to stand and listen

to that horrible voice, and look at the broad, white face of the

landlord, all perspiring and quivering as he clutched the arms of his

chair.

“Impossible,” said the lawyer, “impossible. There is no chimney. I came

here because I was convinced the noise was going on here. It was

certainly in the next room to mine.”

“Was there no door between yours and mine?” said Anderson eagerly.

“No, sir,” said Herr Jensen, rather sharply. “At least, not this

morning.”

“Ah!” said Anderson. “Nor tonight?”

“I am not sure,” said the lawyer with some hesitation.

Suddenly the crying or singing voice in the next room died away, and

the singer was heard seemingly to laugh to himself in a crooning

manner. The three men actually shivered at the sound. Then there was a

silence.

“Come,” said the lawyer, “what have you to say, Herr Kristensen? What

does this mean?”

“Good Heaven!” said Kristensen. “How should I tell! I know no more than

you, gentlemen. I pray I may never hear such a noise again.”

“So do I,” said Herr Jensen, and he added something under his breath.

Anderson thought it sounded like the last words of the Psalter, “_omnis

spiritus laudet Dominum_,” but he could not be sure.

“But we must do something,” said Anderson—“the three of us. Shall we go

and investigate in the next room?”

“But that is Herr Jensen’s room,” wailed the landlord. “It is no use;

he has come from there himself.”

“I am not so sure,” said Jensen. “I think this gentleman is right: we

must go and see.”

The only weapons of defence that could be mustered on the spot were a

stick and umbrella. The expedition went out into the passage, not

without quakings. There was a deadly quiet outside, but a light shone

from under the next door. Anderson and Jensen approached it. The latter

turned the handle, and gave a sudden vigorous push. No use. The door

stood fast.

“Herr Kristensen,” said Jensen, “will you go and fetch the strongest

servant you have in the place? We must see this through.”

The landlord nodded, and hurried off, glad to be away from the scene of

action. Jensen and Anderson remained outside looking at the door.

“It _is_ Number 13, you see,” said the latter.

“Yes; there is your door, and there is mine,” said Jensen.

“My room has three windows in the daytime,” said Anderson, with

difficulty suppressing a nervous laugh.

“By George, so has mine!” said the lawyer, turning and looking at

Anderson. His back was now to the door. In that moment the door opened,

and an arm came out and clawed at his shoulder. It was clad in ragged,

yellowish linen, and the bare skin, where it could be seen, had long

grey hair upon it.

Anderson was just in time to pull Jensen out of its reach with a cry of

disgust and fright, when the door shut again, and a low laugh was

heard.

Jensen had seen nothing, but when Anderson hurriedly told him what a

risk he had run, he fell into a great state of agitation, and suggested

that they should retire from the enterprise and lock themselves up in

one or other of their rooms.

However, while he was developing this plan, the landlord and two

able-bodied men arrived on the scene, all looking rather serious and

alarmed. Jensen met them with a torrent of description and explanation,

which did not at all tend to encourage them for the fray.

The men dropped the crowbars they had brought, and said flatly that

they were not going to risk their throats in that devil’s den. The

landlord was miserably nervous and undecided, conscious that if the

danger were not faced his hotel was ruined, and very loth to face it

himself. Luckily Anderson hit upon a way of rallying the demoralized

force.

“Is this,” he said, “the Danish courage I have heard so much of? It

isn’t a German in there, and if it was, we are five to one.”

The two servants and Jensen were stung into action by this, and made a

dash at the door.

“Stop!” said Anderson. “Don’t lose your heads. You stay out here with

the light, landlord, and one of you two men break in the door, and

don’t go in when it gives way.”

The men nodded, and the younger stepped forward, raised his crowbar,

and dealt a tremendous blow on the upper panel. The result was not in

the least what any of them anticipated. There was no cracking or

rending of wood—only a dull sound, as if the solid wall had been

struck. The man dropped his tool with a shout, and began rubbing his

elbow. His cry drew their eyes upon him for a moment; then Anderson

looked at the door again. It was gone; the plaster wall of the passage

stared him in the face, with a considerable gash in it where the

crowbar had struck it. Number 13 had passed out of existence.

For a brief space they stood perfectly still, gazing at the blank wall.

An early cock in the yard beneath was heard to crow; and as Anderson

glanced in the direction of the sound, he saw through the window at the

end of the long passage that the eastern sky was paling to the dawn.

“Perhaps,” said the landlord, with hesitation, “you gentlemen would

like another room for tonight—a double-bedded one?”

Neither Jensen nor Anderson was averse to the suggestion. They felt

inclined to hunt in couples after their late experience. It was found

convenient, when each of them went to his room to collect the articles

he wanted for the night, that the other should go with him and hold the

candle. They noticed that both Number 12 and Number 14 had _three_

windows.

Next morning the same party reassembled in Number 12. The landlord was

naturally anxious to avoid engaging outside help, and yet it was

imperative that the mystery attaching to that part of the house should

be cleared up. Accordingly the two servants had been induced to take

upon them the function of carpenters. The furniture was cleared away,

and, at the cost of a good many irretrievably damaged planks, that

portion of the floor was taken up which lay nearest to Number 14.

You will naturally suppose that a skeleton—say that of Mag Nicolas

Francken—was discovered. That was not so. What they did find lying

between the beams which supported the flooring was a small copper box.

In it was a neatly-folded vellum document, with about twenty lines of

writing. Both Anderson and Jensen (who proved to be something of a

palæographer) were much excited by this discovery, which promised to

afford the key to these extraordinary phenomena.

I possess a copy of an astrological work which I have never read. It

has, by way of frontispiece, a woodcut by Hans Sebald Beham,

representing a number of sages seated round a table. This detail may

enable connoisseurs to identify the book. I cannot myself recollect its

title, and it is not at this moment within reach; but the fly-leaves of

it are covered with writing, and, during the ten years in which I have

owned the volume, I have not been able to determine which way up this

writing ought to be read, much less in what language it is. Not

dissimilar was the position of Anderson and Jensen after the protracted

examination to which they submitted the document in the copper box.

After two days’ contemplation of it, Jensen, who was the bolder spirit

of the two, hazarded the conjecture that the language was either Latin

or Old Danish.

Anderson ventured upon no surmises, and was very willing to surrender

the box and the parchment to the Historical Society of Viborg to be

placed in their museum.

I had the whole story from him a few months later, as we sat in a wood

near Upsala, after a visit to the library there, where we—or, rather,

I—had laughed over the contract by which Daniel Salthenius (in later

life Professor of Hebrew at Königsberg) sold himself to Satan. Anderson

was not really amused.

“Young idiot!” he said, meaning Salthenius, who was only an

undergraduate when he committed that indiscretion, “how did he know

what company he was courting?”

And when I suggested the usual considerations he only grunted. That

same afternoon he told me what you have read; but he refused to draw

any inferences from it, and to assent to any that I drew for him.

COUNT MAGNUS

By what means the papers out of which I have made a connected story

came into my hands is the last point which the reader will learn from

these pages. But it is necessary to prefix to my extracts from them a

statement of the form in which I possess them.

They consist, then, partly of a series of collections for a book of

travels, such a volume as was a common product of the forties and

fifties. Horace Marryat’s _Journal of a Residence in Jutland and the

Danish Isles_ is a fair specimen of the class to which I allude. These

books usually treated of some unknown district on the Continent. They

were illustrated with woodcuts or steel plates. They gave details of

hotel accommodation, and of means of communication, such as we now

expect to find in any well-regulated guide-book, and they dealt largely

in reported conversations with intelligent foreigners, racy innkeepers,

and garrulous peasants. In a word, they were chatty.

Begun with the idea of furnishing material for such a book, my papers

as they progressed assumed the character of a record of one single

personal experience, and this record was continued up to the very eve,

almost, of its termination.

The writer was a Mr Wraxall. For my knowledge of him I have to depend

entirely on the evidence his writings afford, and from these I deduce

that he was a man past middle age, possessed of some private means, and

very much alone in the world. He had, it seems, no settled abode in

England, but was a denizen of hotels and boarding-houses. It is

probable that he entertained the idea of settling down at some future

time which never came; and I think it also likely that the Pantechnicon

fire in the early seventies must have destroyed a great deal that would

have thrown light on his antecedents, for he refers once or twice to

property of his that was warehoused at that establishment.

It is further apparent that Mr Wraxall had published a book, and that

it treated of a holiday he had once taken in Brittany. More than this I

cannot say about his work, because a diligent search in bibliographical

works has convinced me that it must have appeared either anonymously or

under a pseudonym.

As to his character, it is not difficult to form some superficial

opinion. He must have been an intelligent and cultivated man. It seems

that he was near being a Fellow of his college at Oxford—Brasenose, as

I judge from the Calendar. His besetting fault was pretty clearly that

of over-inquisitiveness, possibly a good fault in a traveller,

certainly a fault for which this traveller paid dearly enough in the

end.

On what proved to be his last expedition, he was plotting another book.

Scandinavia, a region not widely known to Englishmen forty years ago,

had struck him as an interesting field. He must have alighted on some

old books of Swedish history or memoirs, and the idea had struck him

that there was room for a book descriptive of travel in Sweden,

interspersed with episodes from the history of some of the great

Swedish families. He procured letters of introduction, therefore, to

some persons of quality in Sweden, and set out thither in the early

summer of 1863.

Of his travels in the North there is no need to speak, nor of his

residence of some weeks in Stockholm. I need only mention that some

_savant_ resident there put him on the track of an important collection

of family papers belonging to the proprietors of an ancient manor-house

in Vestergothland, and obtained for him permission to examine them.

The manor-house, or _herrgård_, in question is to be called Råbäck

(pronounced something like Roebeck), though that is not its name. It is

one of the best buildings of its kind in all the country, and the

picture of it in Dahlenberg’s _Suecia antiqua et moderna_, engraved in

1694, shows it very much as the tourist may see it today. It was built

soon after 1600, and is, roughly speaking, very much like an English

house of that period in respect of material—red-brick with stone

facings—and style. The man who built it was a scion of the great house

of De la Gardie, and his descendants possess it still. De la Gardie is

the name by which I will designate them when mention of them becomes

necessary.

They received Mr Wraxall with great kindness and courtesy, and pressed

him to stay in the house as long as his researches lasted. But,

preferring to be independent, and mistrusting his powers of conversing

in Swedish, he settled himself at the village inn, which turned out

quite sufficiently comfortable, at any rate during the summer months.

This arrangement would entail a short walk daily to and from the

manor-house of something under a mile. The house itself stood in a

park, and was protected—we should say grown up—with large old timber.

Near it you found the walled garden, and then entered a close wood

fringing one of the small lakes with which the whole country is pitted.

Then came the wall of the demesne, and you climbed a steep knoll—a knob

of rock lightly covered with soil—and on the top of this stood the

church, fenced in with tall dark trees. It was a curious building to

English eyes. The nave and aisles were low, and filled with pews and

galleries. In the western gallery stood the handsome old organ, gaily

painted, and with silver pipes. The ceiling was flat, and had been

adorned by a seventeenth-century artist with a strange and hideous

“Last Judgement”, full of lurid flames, falling cities, burning ships,

crying souls, and brown and smiling demons. Handsome brass coronae hung

from the roof; the pulpit was like a doll’s-house covered with little

painted wooden cherubs and saints; a stand with three hour-glasses was

hinged to the preacher’s desk. Such sights as these may be seen in many

a church in Sweden now, but what distinguished this one was an addition

to the original building. At the eastern end of the north aisle the

builder of the manor-house had erected a mausoleum for himself and his

family. It was a largish eight-sided building, lighted by a series of

oval windows, and it had a domed roof, topped by a kind of

pumpkin-shaped object rising into a spire, a form in which Swedish

architects greatly delighted. The roof was of copper externally, and

was painted black, while the walls, in common with those of the church,

were staringly white. To this mausoleum there was no access from the

church. It had a portal and steps of its own on the northern side.

Past the churchyard the path to the village goes, and not more than

three or four minutes bring you to the inn door.

On the first day of his stay at Råbäck Mr Wraxall found the church door

open, and made those notes of the interior which I have epitomized.

Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by

looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble

effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament,

which made him very anxious to spend some time in investigation.

The papers he had come to examine at the manor-house proved to be of

just the kind he wanted for his book. There were family correspondence,

journals, and account-books of the earliest owners of the estate, very

carefully kept and clearly written, full of amusing and picturesque

detail. The first De la Gardie appeared in them as a strong and capable

man. Shortly after the building of the mansion there had been a period

of distress in the district, and the peasants had risen and attacked

several châteaux and done some damage. The owner of Råbäck took a

leading part in supressing the trouble, and there was reference to

executions of ring-leaders and severe punishments inflicted with no

sparing hand.

The portrait of this Magnus de la Gardie was one of the best in the

house, and Mr Wraxall studied it with no little interest after his

day’s work. He gives no detailed description of it, but I gather that

the face impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or

goodness; in fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost

phenomenally ugly man.

On this day Mr Wraxall took his supper with the family, and walked back

in the late but still bright evening.

“I must remember,” he writes, “to ask the sexton if he can let me into

the mausoleum at the church. He evidently has access to it himself, for

I saw him tonight standing on the steps, and, as I thought, locking or

unlocking the door.”

I find that early on the following day Mr Wraxall had some conversation

with his landlord. His setting it down at such length as he does

surprised me at first; but I soon realized that the papers I was

reading were, at least in their beginning, the materials for the book

he was meditating, and that it was to have been one of those

quasi-journalistic productions which admit of the introduction of an

admixture of conversational matter.

His object, he says, was to find out whether any traditions of Count

Magnus de la Gardie lingered on in the scenes of that gentleman’s

activity, and whether the popular estimate of him were favourable or

not. He found that the Count was decidedly not a favourite. If his

tenants came late to their work on the days which they owed to him as

Lord of the Manor, they were set on the wooden horse, or flogged and

branded in the manor-house yard. One or two cases there were of men who

had occupied lands which encroached on the lord’s domain, and whose

houses had been mysteriously burnt on a winter’s night, with the whole

family inside. But what seemed to dwell on the innkeeper’s mind

most—for he returned to the subject more than once—was that the Count

had been on the Black Pilgrimage, and had brought something or someone

back with him.

You will naturally inquire, as Mr Wraxall did, what the Black

Pilgrimage may have been. But your curiosity on the point must remain

unsatisfied for the time being, just as his did. The landlord was

evidently unwilling to give a full answer, or indeed any answer, on the

point, and, being called out for a moment, trotted out with obvious

alacrity, only putting his head in at the door a few minutes afterwards

to say that he was called away to Skara, and should not be back till

evening.

So Mr Wraxall had to go unsatisfied to his day’s work at the

manor-house. The papers on which he was just then engaged soon put his

thoughts into another channel, for he had to occupy himself with

glancing over the correspondence between Sophia Albertina in Stockholm

and her married cousin Ulrica Leonora at Råbäck in the years 1705-1710.

The letters were of exceptional interest from the light they threw upon

the culture of that period in Sweden, as anyone can testify who has

read the full edition of them in the publications of the Swedish

Historical Manuscripts Commission.

In the afternoon he had done with these, and after returning the boxes

in which they were kept to their places on the shelf, he proceeded,

very naturally, to take down some of the volumes nearest to them, in

order to determine which of them had best be his principal subject of

investigation next day. The shelf he had hit upon was occupied mostly

by a collection of account-books in the writing of the first Count

Magnus. But one among them was not an account-book, but a book of

alchemical and other tracts in another sixteenth-century hand. Not

being very familiar with alchemical literature, Mr Wraxall spends much

space which he might have spared in setting out the names and

beginnings of the various treatises: The book of the Phœnix, book of

the Thirty Words, book of the Toad, book of Miriam, Turba

philosophorum, and so forth; and then he announces with a good deal of

circumstance his delight at finding, on a leaf originally left blank

near the middle of the book, some writing of Count Magnus himself

headed “Liber nigræ peregrinationis”. It is true that only a few lines

were written, but there was quite enough to show that the landlord had

that morning been referring to a belief at least as old as the time of

Count Magnus, and probably shared by him. This is the English of what

was written:

“If any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a

faithful messenger and see the blood of his enemies, it is necessary

that he should first go into the city of Chorazin, and there salute the

prince….” Here there was an erasure of one word, not very thoroughly

done, so that Mr Wraxall felt pretty sure that he was right in reading

it as _aëris_ (“of the air”). But there was no more of the text copied,

only a line in Latin: _Quære reliqua hujus materiei inter secretiora_.

(See the rest of this matter among the more private things.)

It could not be denied that this threw a rather lurid light upon the

tastes and beliefs of the Count; but to Mr Wraxall, separated from him

by nearly three centuries, the thought that he might have added to his

general forcefulness alchemy, and to alchemy something like magic, only

made him a more picturesque figure; and when, after a rather prolonged

contemplation of his picture in the hall, Mr Wraxall set out on his

homeward way, his mind was full of the thought of Count Magnus. He had

no eyes for his surroundings, no perception of the evening scents of

the woods or the evening light on the lake; and when all of a sudden he

pulled up short, he was astonished to find himself already at the gate

of the churchyard, and within a few minutes of his dinner. His eyes

fell on the mausoleum.

“Ah,” he said, “Count Magnus, there you are. I should dearly like to

see you.”

“Like many solitary men,” he writes, “I have a habit of talking to

myself aloud; and, unlike some of the Greek and Latin particles, I do

not expect an answer. Certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case,

there was neither voice nor any that regarded: only the woman who, I

suppose, was cleaning up the church, dropped some metallic object on

the floor, whose clang startled me. Count Magnus, I think, sleeps sound

enough.”

That same evening the landlord of the inn, who had heard Mr Wraxall say

that he wished to see the clerk or deacon (as he would be called in

Sweden) of the parish, introduced him to that official in the inn

parlour. A visit to the De la Gardie tomb-house was soon arranged for

the next day, and a little general conversation ensued.

Mr Wraxall, remembering that one function of Scandinavian deacons is to

teach candidates for Confirmation, thought he would refresh his own

memory on a Biblical point.

“Can you tell me,” he said, “anything about Chorazin?”

The deacon seemed startled, but readily reminded him how that village

had once been denounced.

“To be sure,” said Mr Wraxall; “it is, I suppose, quite a ruin now?”

“So I expect,” replied the deacon. “I have heard some of our old

priests say that Antichrist is to be born there; and there are tales—”

“Ah! what tales are those?” Mr Wraxall put in.

“Tales, I was going to say, which I have forgotten,” said the deacon;

and soon after that he said good night.

The landlord was now alone, and at Mr Wraxall’s mercy; and that

inquirer was not inclined to spare him.

“Herr Nielsen,” he said, “I have found out something about the Black

Pilgrimage. You may as well tell me what you know. What did the Count

bring back with him?”

Swedes are habitually slow, perhaps, in answering, or perhaps the

landlord was an exception. I am not sure; but Mr Wraxall notes that the

landlord spent at least one minute in looking at him before he said

anything at all. Then he came close up to his guest, and with a good

deal of effort he spoke:

“Mr Wraxall, I can tell you this one little tale, and no more—not any

more. You must not ask anything when I have done. In my grandfather’s

time—that is, ninety-two years ago—there were two men who said: ‘The

Count is dead; we do not care for him. We will go tonight and have a

free hunt in his wood’—the long wood on the hill that you have seen

behind Råbäck. Well, those that heard them say this, they said: ‘No, do

not go; we are sure you will meet with persons walking who should not

be walking. They should be resting, not walking.’ These men laughed.

There were no forestmen to keep the wood, because no one wished to live

there. The family were not here at the house. These men could do what

they wished.

“Very well, they go to the wood that night. My grandfather was sitting

here in this room. It was the summer, and a light night. With the

window open, he could see out to the wood, and hear.

“So he sat there, and two or three men with him, and they listened. At

first they hear nothing at all; then they hear someone—you know how far

away it is—they hear someone scream, just as if the most inside part of

his soul was twisted out of him. All of them in the room caught hold of

each other, and they sat so for three-quarters of an hour. Then they

hear someone else, only about three hundred ells off. They hear him

laugh out loud: it was not one of those two men that laughed, and,

indeed, they have all of them said that it was not any man at all.

After that they hear a great door shut.

“Then, when it was just light with the sun, they all went to the

priest. They said to him:

“‘Father, put on your gown and your ruff, and come to bury these men,

Anders Bjornsen and Hans Thorbjorn.’

“You understand that they were sure these men were dead. So they went

to the wood—my grandfather never forgot this. He said they were all

like so many dead men themselves. The priest, too, he was in a white

fear. He said when they came to him:

“‘I heard one cry in the night, and I heard one laugh afterwards. If I

cannot forget that, I shall not be able to sleep again.’

“So they went to the wood, and they found these men on the edge of the

wood. Hans Thorbjorn was standing with his back against a tree, and all

the time he was pushing with his hands—pushing something away from him

which was not there. So he was not dead. And they led him away, and

took him to the house at Nykjoping, and he died before the winter; but

he went on pushing with his hands. Also Anders Bjornsen was there; but

he was dead. And I tell you this about Anders Bjornsen, that he was

once a beautiful man, but now his face was not there, because the flesh

of it was sucked away off the bones. You understand that? My

grandfather did not forget that. And they laid him on the bier which

they brought, and they put a cloth over his head, and the priest walked

before; and they began to sing the psalm for the dead as well as they

could. So, as they were singing the end of the first verse, one fell

down, who was carrying the head of the bier, and the others looked

back, and they saw that the cloth had fallen off, and the eyes of

Anders Bjornsen were looking up, because there was nothing to close

over them. And this they could not bear. Therefore the priest laid the

cloth upon him, and sent for a spade, and they buried him in that

place.”

The next day Mr Wraxall records that the deacon called for him soon

after his breakfast, and took him to the church and mausoleum. He

noticed that the key of the latter was hung on a nail just by the

pulpit, and it occurred to him that, as the church door seemed to be

left unlocked as a rule, it would not be difficult for him to pay a

second and more private visit to the monuments if there proved to be

more of interest among them than could be digested at first. The

building, when he entered it, he found not unimposing. The monuments,

mostly large erections of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

were dignified if luxuriant, and the epitaphs and heraldry were

copious. The central space of the domed room was occupied by three

copper sarcophagi, covered with finely-engraved ornament. Two of them

had, as is commonly the case in Denmark and Sweden, a large metal

crucifix on the lid. The third, that of Count Magnus, as it appeared,

had, instead of that, a full-length effigy engraved upon it, and round

the edge were several bands of similar ornament representing various

scenes. One was a battle, with cannon belching out smoke, and walled

towns, and troops of pikemen. Another showed an execution. In a third,

among trees, was a man running at full speed, with flying hair and

outstretched hands. After him followed a strange form; it would be hard

to say whether the artist had intended it for a man, and was unable to

give the requisite similitude, or whether it was intentionally made as

monstrous as it looked. In view of the skill with which the rest of the

drawing was done, Mr Wraxall felt inclined to adopt the latter idea.

The figure was unduly short, and was for the most part muffled in a

hooded garment which swept the ground. The only part of the form which

projected from that shelter was not shaped like any hand or arm. Mr

Wraxall compares it to the tentacle of a devil-fish, and continues: “On

seeing this, I said to myself, ‘This, then, which is evidently an

allegorical representation of some kind—a fiend pursuing a hunted

soul—may be the origin of the story of Count Magnus and his mysterious

companion. Let us see how the huntsman is pictured: doubtless it will

be a demon blowing his horn.”’ But, as it turned out, there was no such

sensational figure, only the semblance of a cloaked man on a hillock,

who stood leaning on a stick, and watching the hunt with an interest

which the engraver had tried to express in his attitude.

Mr Wraxall noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks—three in

number—which secured the sarcophagus. One of them, he saw, was

detached, and lay on the pavement. And then, unwilling to delay the

deacon longer or to waste his own working-time, he made his way onward

to the manor-house.

“It is curious,” he notes, “how, on retracing a familiar path, one’s

thoughts engross one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects.

Tonight, for the second time, I had entirely failed to notice where I

was going (I had planned a private visit to the tomb-house to copy the

epitaphs), when I suddenly, as it were, awoke to consciousness, and

found myself (as before) turning in at the churchyard gate, and, I

believe, singing or chanting some such words as, ‘Are you awake, Count

Magnus? Are you asleep, Count Magnus?’ and then something more which I

have failed to recollect. It seemed to me that I must have been

behaving in this nonsensical way for some time.”

He found the key of the mausoleum where he had expected to find it, and

copied the greater part of what he wanted; in fact, he stayed until the

light began to fail him.

“I must have been wrong,” he writes, “in saying that one of the

padlocks of my Count’s sarcophagus was unfastened; I see tonight that

two are loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the

window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining

one is still firm, and, though I take it to be a spring lock, I cannot

guess how it is opened. Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost

afraid I should have taken the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. It

is strange, the interest I feel in the personality of this, I fear,

somewhat ferocious and grim old noble.”

The day following was, as it turned out, the last of Mr Wraxall’s stay

at Råbäck. He received letters connected with certain investments which

made it desirable that he should return to England; his work among the

papers was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided,

therefore, to make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his

notes, and be off.

These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time

than he had expected. The hospitable family insisted on his staying to

dine with them—they dined at three—and it was verging on half past six

before he was outside the iron gates of Råbäck. He dwelt on every step

of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself, now that he

trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And

when he reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for

many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of woods near and

distant, all dark beneath a sky of liquid green. When at last he turned

to go, the thought struck him that surely he must bid farewell to Count

Magnus as well as the rest of the De la Gardies. The church was but

twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. It

was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and,

as usual, talking to himself aloud. “You may have been a bit of a

rascal in your time, Magnus,” he was saying, “but for all that I should

like to see you, or, rather—”

“Just at that instant,” he says, “I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily

enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash.

It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the

sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and—Heaven is my witness that I

am writing only the bare truth—before I had raised myself there was a

sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting

upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life

stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time

than I can write—almost as quickly as I could have said—the words; and

what frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key in the lock. As I

sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty

minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I

cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something

more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or

sight I am not able to remember. What is this that I have done?”

Poor Mr Wraxall! He set out on his journey to England on the next day,

as he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I

gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man.

One of several small note-books that have come to me with his papers

gives, not a key to, but a kind of inkling of, his experiences. Much of

his journey was made by canal-boat, and I find not less than six

painful attempts to enumerate and describe his fellow-passengers. The

entries are of this kind:

24. Pastor of village in Skåne. Usual black coat and soft black hat.

25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm going to Trollhättan. Black

cloak, brown hat.

26. Man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned.

This entry is lined out, and a note added: “Perhaps identical with No.

13. Have not yet seen his face.” On referring to No. 13, I find that he

is a Roman priest in a cassock.

The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twenty-eight people

appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak

and broad hat, and another a “short figure in dark cloak and hood”. On

the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers

appear at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and

the short figure is certainly absent.

On reaching England, it appears that Mr Wraxall landed at Harwich, and

that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person

or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to

regard as his pursuers. Accordingly he took a vehicle—it was a closed

fly—not trusting the railway and drove across country to the village of

Belchamp St Paul. It was about nine o’clock on a moonlight August night

when he neared the place. He was sitting forward, and looking out of

the window at the fields and thickets—there was little else to be

seen—racing past him. Suddenly he came to a cross-road. At the corner

two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the

taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood. He had no time to see their

faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the

horse shied violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr Wraxall sank back

into his seat in something like desperation. He had seen them before.

Arrived at Belchamp St Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent

furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived,

comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this

day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full,

but the substance of them is clear enough. He is expecting a visit from

his pursuers—how or when he knows not—and his constant cry is “What has

he done?” and “Is there no hope?” Doctors, he knows, would call him

mad, policemen would laugh at him. The parson is away. What can he do

but lock his door and cry to God?

People still remembered last year at Belchamp St Paul how a strange

gentleman came one evening in August years back; and how the next

morning but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest; and the

jury that viewed the body fainted, seven of ’em did, and none of ’em

wouldn’t speak to what they see, and the verdict was visitation of God;

and how the people as kep’ the ’ouse moved out that same week, and went

away from that part. But they do not, I think, know that any glimmer of

light has ever been thrown, or could be thrown, on the mystery. It so

happened that last year the little house came into my hands as part of

a legacy. It had stood empty since 1863, and there seemed no prospect

of letting it; so I had it pulled down, and the papers of which I have

given you an abstract were found in a forgotten cupboard under the

window in the best bedroom.

“OH, WHISTLE, AND I’LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD”

“I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Full Term is over,

Professor,” said a person not in the story to the Professor of

Ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast

in the hospitable hall of St James’s College.

The Professor was young, neat, and precise in speech.

“Yes,” he said; “my friends have been making me take up golf this term,

and I mean to go to the East Coast—in point of fact to Burnstow—(I dare

say you know it) for a week or ten days, to improve my game. I hope to

get off tomorrow.”

“Oh, Parkins,” said his neighbour on the other side, “if you are going

to Burnstow, I wish you would look at the site of the Templars’

preceptory, and let me know if you think it would be any good to have a

dig there in the summer.”

It was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said

this, but, since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need

to give his entitlements.

“Certainly,” said Parkins, the Professor: “if you will describe to me

whereabouts the site is, I will do my best to give you an idea of the

lie of the land when I get back; or I could write to you about it, if

you would tell me where you are likely to be.”

“Don’t trouble to do that, thanks. It’s only that I’m thinking of

taking my family in that direction in the Long, and it occurred to me

that, as very few of the English preceptories have ever been properly

planned, I might have an opportunity of doing something useful on

off-days.”

The Professor rather sniffed at the idea that planning out a preceptory

could be described as useful. His neighbour continued:

“The site—I doubt if there is anything showing above ground—must be

down quite close to the beach now. The sea has encroached tremendously,

as you know, all along that bit of coast. I should think, from the map,

that it must be about three-quarters of a mile from the Globe Inn, at

the north end of the town. Where are you going to stay?”

“Well, _at_ the Globe Inn, as a matter of fact,” said Parkins; “I have

engaged a room there. I couldn’t get in anywhere else; most of the

lodging-houses are shut up in winter, it seems; and, as it is, they

tell me that the only room of any size I can have is really a

double-bedded one, and that they haven’t a corner in which to store the

other bed, and so on. But I must have a fairly large room, for I am

taking some books down, and mean to do a bit of work; and though I

don’t quite fancy having an empty bed—not to speak of two—in what I may

call for the time being my study, I suppose I can manage to rough it

for the short time I shall be there.”

“Do you call having an extra bed in your room roughing it, Parkins?”

said a bluff person opposite. “Look here, I shall come down and occupy

it for a bit; it’ll be company for you.”

The Professor quivered, but managed to laugh in a courteous manner.

“By all means, Rogers; there’s nothing I should like better. But I’m

afraid you would find it rather dull; you don’t play golf, do you?”

“No, thank Heaven!” said rude Mr Rogers.

“Well, you see, when I’m not writing I shall most likely be out on the

links, and that, as I say, would be rather dull for you, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I don’t know! There’s certain to be somebody I know in the place;

but, of course, if you don’t want me, speak the word, Parkins; I shan’t

be offended. Truth, as you always tell us, is never offensive.”

Parkins was, indeed, scrupulously polite and strictly truthful. It is

to be feared that Mr Rogers sometimes practised upon his knowledge of

these characteristics. In Parkins’s breast there was a conflict now

raging, which for a moment or two did not allow him to answer. That

interval being over, he said:

“Well, if you want the exact truth, Rogers, I was considering whether

the room I speak of would really be large enough to accommodate us both

comfortably; and also whether (mind, I shouldn’t have said this if you

hadn’t pressed me) you would not constitute something in the nature of

a hindrance to my work.”

Rogers laughed loudly.

“Well done, Parkins!” he said. “It’s all right. I promise not to

interrupt your work; don’t you disturb yourself about that. No, I won’t

come if you don’t want me; but I thought I should do so nicely to keep

the ghosts off.” Here he might have been seen to wink and to nudge his

next neighbour. Parkins might also have been seen to become pink. “I

beg pardon, Parkins,” Rogers continued; “I oughtn’t to have said that.

I forgot you didn’t like levity on these topics.”

“Well,” Parkins said, “as you have mentioned the matter, I freely own

that I do _not_ like careless talk about what you call ghosts. A man in

my position,” he went on, raising his voice a little, “cannot, I find,

be too careful about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on such

subjects. As you know, Rogers, or as you ought to know; for I think I

have never concealed my views—”

“No, you certainly have not, old man,” put in Rogers _sotto voce._

“—I hold that any semblance, any appearance of concession to the view

that such things might exist is equivalent to a renunciation of all

that I hold most sacred. But I’m afraid I have not succeeded in

securing your attention.”

“Your _undivided_ attention, was what Dr Blimber actually _said_,”[4]

Rogers interrupted, with every appearance of an earnest desire for

accuracy. “But I beg your pardon, Parkins: I’m stopping you.”

[4] Mr Rogers was wrong, _vide Dombey and Son_, chapter xii.

“No, not at all,” said Parkins. “I don’t remember Blimber; perhaps he

was before my time. But I needn’t go on. I’m sure you know what I

mean.”

“Yes, yes,” said Rogers, rather hastily—“just so. We’ll go into it

fully at Burnstow, or somewhere.”

In repeating the above dialogue I have tried to give the impression

which it made on me, that Parkins was something of an old woman—rather

henlike, perhaps, in his little ways; totally destitute, alas! of the

sense of humour, but at the same time dauntless and sincere in his

convictions, and a man deserving of the greatest respect. Whether or

not the reader has gathered so much, that was the character which

Parkins had.

On the following day Parkins did, as he had hoped, succeed in getting

away from his college, and in arriving at Burnstow. He was made welcome

at the Globe Inn, was safely installed in the large double-bedded room

of which we have heard, and was able before retiring to rest to arrange

his materials for work in apple-pie order upon a commodious table which

occupied the outer end of the room, and was surrounded on three sides

by windows looking out seaward; that is to say, the central window

looked straight out to sea, and those on the left and right commanded

prospects along the shore to the north and south respectively. On the

south you saw the village of Burnstow. On the north no houses were to

be seen, but only the beach and the low cliff backing it. Immediately

in front was a strip—not considerable—of rough grass, dotted with old

anchors, capstans, and so forth; then a broad path; then the beach.

Whatever may have been the original distance between the Globe Inn and

the sea, not more than sixty yards now separated them.

The rest of the population of the inn was, of course, a golfing one,

and included few elements that call for a special description. The most

conspicuous figure was, perhaps, that of an _ancien militaire_,

secretary of a London club, and possessed of a voice of incredible

strength, and of views of a pronouncedly Protestant type. These were

apt to find utterance after his attendance upon the ministrations of

the Vicar, an estimable man with inclinations towards a picturesque

ritual, which he gallantly kept down as far as he could out of

deference to East Anglian tradition.

Professor Parkins, one of whose principal characteristics was pluck,

spent the greater part of the day following his arrival at Burnstow in

what he had called improving his game, in company with this Colonel

Wilson: and during the afternoon—whether the process of improvement

were to blame or not, I am not sure—the Colonel’s demeanour assumed a

colouring so lurid that even Parkins jibbed at the thought of walking

home with him from the links. He determined, after a short and furtive

look at that bristling moustache and those incarnadined features, that

it would be wiser to allow the influences of tea and tobacco to do what

they could with the Colonel before the dinner-hour should render a

meeting inevitable.

“I might walk home tonight along the beach,” he reflected—“yes, and

take a look—there will be light enough for that—at the ruins of which

Disney was talking. I don’t exactly know where they are, by the way;

but I expect I can hardly help stumbling on them.”

This he accomplished, I may say, in the most literal sense, for in

picking his way from the links to the shingle beach his foot caught,

partly in a gorse-root and partly in a biggish stone, and over he went.

When he got up and surveyed his surroundings, he found himself in a

patch of somewhat broken ground covered with small depressions and

mounds. These latter, when he came to examine them, proved to be simply

masses of flints embedded in mortar and grown over with turf. He must,

he quite rightly concluded, be on the site of the preceptory he had

promised to look at. It seemed not unlikely to reward the spade of the

explorer; enough of the foundations was probably left at no great depth

to throw a good deal of light on the general plan. He remembered

vaguely that the Templars, to whom this site had belonged, were in the

habit of building round churches, and he thought a particular series of

the humps or mounds near him did appear to be arranged in something of

a circular form. Few people can resist the temptation to try a little

amateur research in a department quite outside their own, if only for

the satisfaction of showing how successful they would have been had

they only taken it up seriously. Our Professor, however, if he felt

something of this mean desire, was also truly anxious to oblige Mr

Disney. So he paced with care the circular area he had noticed, and

wrote down its rough dimensions in his pocket-book. Then he proceeded

to examine an oblong eminence which lay east of the centre of the

circle, and seemed to his thinking likely to be the base of a platform

or altar. At one end of it, the northern, a patch of the turf was

gone—removed by some boy or other creature _feraæ naturæ_. It might, he

thought, be as well to probe the soil here for evidences of masonry,

and he took out his knife and began scraping away the earth. And now

followed another little discovery: a portion of soil fell inward as he

scraped, and disclosed a small cavity. He lighted one match after

another to help him to see of what nature the hole was, but the wind

was too strong for them all. By tapping and scratching the sides with

his knife, however, he was able to make out that it must be an

artificial hole in masonry. It was rectangular, and the sides, top, and

bottom, if not actually plastered, were smooth and regular. Of course

it was empty. No! As he withdrew the knife he heard a metallic clink,

and when he introduced his hand it met with a cylindrical object lying

on the floor of the hole. Naturally enough, he picked it up, and when

he brought it into the light, now fast fading, he could see that it,

too, was of man’s making—a metal tube about four inches long, and

evidently of some considerable age.

By the time Parkins had made sure that there was nothing else in this

odd receptacle, it was too late and too dark for him to think of

undertaking any further search. What he had done had proved so

unexpectedly interesting that he determined to sacrifice a little more

of the daylight on the morrow to archaeology. The object which he now

had safe in his pocket was bound to be of some slight value at least,

he felt sure.

Bleak and solemn was the view on which he took a last look before

starting homeward. A faint yellow light in the west showed the links,

on which a few figures moving towards the club-house were still

visible, the squat martello tower, the lights of Aldsey village, the

pale ribbon of sands intersected at intervals by black wooden

groynings, the dim and murmuring sea. The wind was bitter from the

north, but was at his back when he set out for the Globe. He quickly

rattled and clashed through the shingle and gained the sand, upon

which, but for the groynings which had to be got over every few yards,

the going was both good and quiet. One last look behind, to measure the

distance he had made since leaving the ruined Templars’ church, showed

him a prospect of company on his walk, in the shape of a rather

indistinct personage, who seemed to be making great efforts to catch up

with him, but made little, if any, progress. I mean that there was an

appearance of running about his movements, but that the distance

between him and Parkins did not seem materially to lessen. So, at

least, Parkins thought, and decided that he almost certainly did not

know him, and that it would be absurd to wait until he came up. For all

that, company, he began to think, would really be very welcome on that

lonely shore, if only you could choose your companion. In his

unenlightened days he had read of meetings in such places which even

now would hardly bear thinking of. He went on thinking of them,

however, until he reached home, and particularly of one which catches

most people’s fancy at some time of their childhood. “Now I saw in my

dream that Christian had gone but a very little way when he saw a foul

fiend coming over the field to meet him.” “What should I do now,” he

thought, “if I looked back and caught sight of a black figure sharply

defined against the yellow sky, and saw that it had horns and wings? I

wonder whether I should stand or run for it. Luckily, the gentleman

behind is not of that kind, and he seems to be about as far off now as

when I saw him first. Well, at this rate, he won’t get his dinner as

soon as I shall; and, dear me! it’s within a quarter of an hour of the

time now. I must run!”

Parkins had, in fact, very little time for dressing. When he met the

Colonel at dinner, Peace—or as much of her as that gentleman could

manage—reigned once more in the military bosom; nor was she put to

flight in the hours of bridge that followed dinner, for Parkins was a

more than respectable player. When, therefore, he retired towards

twelve o’clock, he felt that he had spent his evening in quite a

satisfactory way, and that, even for so long as a fortnight or three

weeks, life at the Globe would be supportable under similar

conditions—“especially,” thought he, “if I go on improving my game.”

As he went along the passages he met the boots of the Globe, who

stopped and said:

“Beg your pardon, sir, but as I was a-brushing your coat just now there

was somethink fell out of the pocket. I put it on your chest of

drawers, sir, in your room, sir—a piece of a pipe or somethink of that,

sir. Thank you, sir. You’ll find it on your chest of drawers, sir—yes,

sir. Good night, sir.”

The speech served to remind Parkins of his little discovery of that

afternoon. It was with some considerable curiosity that he turned it

over by the light of his candles. It was of bronze, he now saw, and was

shaped very much after the manner of the modern dog-whistle; in fact it

was—yes, certainly it was—actually no more nor less than a whistle. He

put it to his lips, but it was quite full of a fine, caked-up sand or

earth, which would not yield to knocking, but must be loosened with a

knife. Tidy as ever in his habits, Parkins cleared out the earth on to

a piece of paper, and took the latter to the window to empty it out.

The night was clear and bright, as he saw when he had opened the

casement, and he stopped for an instant to look at the sea and note a

belated wanderer stationed on the shore in front of the inn. Then he

shut the window, a little surprised at the late hours people kept at

Burnstow, and took his whistle to the light again. Why, surely there

were marks on it, and not merely marks, but letters! A very little

rubbing rendered the deeply-cut inscription quite legible, but the

Professor had to confess, after some earnest thought, that the meaning

of it was as obscure to him as the writing on the wall to Belshazzar.

There were legends both on the front and on the back of the whistle.

The one read thus:

FLA FUR BIS FLE

The other:

QUIS EST ISTE QUI VENIT

“I ought to be able to make it out,” he thought; “but I suppose I am a

little rusty in my Latin. When I come to think of it, I don’t believe I

even know the word for a whistle. The long one does seem simple enough.

It ought to mean, ‘Who is this who is coming?’ Well, the best way to

find out is evidently to whistle for him.”

He blew tentatively and stopped suddenly, startled and yet pleased at

the note he had elicited. It had a quality of infinite distance in it,

and, soft as it was, he somehow felt it must be audible for miles

round. It was a sound, too, that seemed to have the power (which many

scents possess) of forming pictures in the brain. He saw quite clearly

for a moment a vision of a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh

wind blowing, and in the midst a lonely figure—how employed, he could

not tell. Perhaps he would have seen more had not the picture been

broken by the sudden surge of a gust of wind against his casement, so

sudden that it made him look up, just in time to see the white glint of

a seabird’s wing somewhere outside the dark panes.

The sound of the whistle had so fascinated him that he could not help

trying it once more, this time more boldly. The note was little, if at

all, louder than before, and repetition broke the illusion—no picture

followed, as he had half hoped it might. ‘But what is this? Goodness!

what force the wind can get up in a few minutes! What a tremendous

gust! There! I knew that window-fastening was no use! Ah! I thought

so—both candles out. It is enough to tear the room to pieces.’

The first thing was to get the window shut. While you might count

twenty Parkins was struggling with the small casement, and felt almost

as if he were pushing back a sturdy burglar, so strong was the

pressure. It slackened all at once, and the window banged to and

latched itself. Now to relight the candles and see what damage, if any,

had been done. No, nothing seemed amiss; no glass even was broken in

the casement. But the noise had evidently roused at least one member of

the household: the Colonel was to be heard stumping in his stockinged

feet on the floor above, and growling.

Quickly as it had risen, the wind did not fall at once. On it went,

moaning and rushing past the house, at times rising to a cry so

desolate that, as Parkins disinterestedly said, it might have made

fanciful people feel quite uncomfortable; even the unimaginative, he

thought after a quarter of an hour, might be happier without it.

Whether it was the wind, or the excitement of golf, or of the

researches in the preceptory that kept Parkins awake, he was not sure.

Awake he remained, in any case, long enough to fancy (as I am afraid I

often do myself under such conditions) that he was the victim of all

manner of fatal disorders: he would lie counting the beats of his

heart, convinced that it was going to stop work every moment, and would

entertain grave suspicions of his lungs, brain, liver, etc.—suspicions

which he was sure would be dispelled by the return of daylight, but

which until then refused to be put aside. He found a little vicarious

comfort in the idea that someone else was in the same boat. A near

neighbour (in the darkness it was not easy to tell his direction) was

tossing and rustling in his bed, too.

The next stage was that Parkins shut his eyes and determined to give

sleep every chance. Here again over-excitement asserted itself in

another form—that of making pictures. _Experto crede_, pictures do come

to the closed eyes of one trying to sleep, and are often so little to

his taste that he must open his eyes and disperse them.

Parkins’s experience on this occasion was a very distressing one. He

found that the picture which presented itself to him was continuous.

When he opened his eyes, of course, it went; but when he shut them once

more it framed itself afresh, and acted itself out again, neither

quicker nor slower than before. What he saw was this:

A long stretch of shore—shingle edged by sand, and intersected at short

intervals with black groynes running down to the water—a scene, in

fact, so like that of his afternoon’s walk that, in the absence of any

landmark, it could not be distinguished therefrom. The light was

obscure, conveying an impression of gathering storm, late winter

evening, and slight cold rain. On this bleak stage at first no actor

was visible. Then, in the distance, a bobbing black object appeared; a

moment more, and it was a man running, jumping, clambering over the

groynes, and every few seconds looking eagerly back. The nearer he came

the more obvious it was that he was not only anxious, but even terribly

frightened, though his face was not to be distinguished. He was,

moreover, almost at the end of his strength. On he came; each

successive obstacle seemed to cause him more difficulty than the last.

“Will he get over this next one?” thought Parkins; “it seems a little

higher than the others.” Yes; half climbing, half throwing himself, he

did get over, and fell all in a heap on the other side (the side

nearest to the spectator). There, as if really unable to get up again,

he remained crouching under the groyne, looking up in an attitude of

painful anxiety.

So far no cause whatever for the fear of the runner had been shown; but

now there began to be seen, far up the shore, a little flicker of

something light-coloured moving to and fro with great swiftness and

irregularity. Rapidly growing larger, it, too, declared itself as a

figure in pale, fluttering draperies, ill-defined. There was something

about its motion which made Parkins very unwilling to see it at close

quarters. It would stop, raise arms, bow itself towards the sand, then

run stooping across the beach to the water-edge and back again; and

then, rising upright, once more continue its course forward at a speed

that was startling and terrifying. The moment came when the pursuer was

hovering about from left to right only a few yards beyond the groyne

where the runner lay in hiding. After two or three ineffectual castings

hither and thither it came to a stop, stood upright, with arms raised

high, and then darted straight forward towards the groyne.

It was at this point that Parkins always failed in his resolution to

keep his eyes shut. With many misgivings as to incipient failure of

eyesight, overworked brain, excessive smoking, and so on, he finally

resigned himself to light his candle, get out a book, and pass the

night waking, rather than be tormented by this persistent panorama,

which he saw clearly enough could only be a morbid reflection of his

walk and his thoughts on that very day.

The scraping of match on box and the glare of light must have startled

some creatures of the night—rats or what not—which he heard scurry

across the floor from the side of his bed with much rustling. Dear,

dear! the match is out! Fool that it is! But the second one burnt

better, and a candle and book were duly procured, over which Parkins

pored till sleep of a wholesome kind came upon him, and that in no long

space. For about the first time in his orderly and prudent life he

forgot to blow out the candle, and when he was called next morning at

eight there was still a flicker in the socket and a sad mess of

guttered grease on the top of the little table.

After breakfast he was in his room, putting the finishing touches to

his golfing costume—fortune had again allotted the Colonel to him for a

partner—when one of the maids came in.

“Oh, if you please,” she said, “would you like any extra blankets on

your bed, sir?”

“Ah! thank you,” said Parkins. “Yes, I think I should like one. It

seems likely to turn rather colder.”

In a very short time the maid was back with the blanket.

“Which bed should I put it on, sir?” she asked.

“What? Why, that one—the one I slept in last night,” he said, pointing

to it.

“Oh yes! I beg your pardon, sir, but you seemed to have tried both of

“em; leastways, we had to make ’em both up this morning.”

“Really? How very absurd!” said Parkins. “I certainly never touched the

other, except to lay some things on it. Did it actually seem to have

been slept in?”

“Oh yes, sir!” said the maid. “Why, all the things was crumpled and

throwed about all ways, if you’ll excuse me, sir—quite as if anyone

’adn’t passed but a very poor night, sir.”

“Dear me,” said Parkins. “Well, I may have disordered it more than I

thought when I unpacked my things. I’m very sorry to have given you the

extra trouble, I’m sure. I expect a friend of mine soon, by the way—a

gentleman from Cambridge—to come and occupy it for a night or two. That

will be all right, I suppose, won’t it?”

“Oh yes, to be sure, sir. Thank you, sir. It’s no trouble, I’m sure,”

said the maid, and departed to giggle with her colleagues.

Parkins set forth, with a stern determination to improve his game.

I am glad to be able to report that he succeeded so far in this

enterprise that the Colonel, who had been rather repining at the

prospect of a second day’s play in his company, became quite chatty as

the morning advanced; and his voice boomed out over the flats, as

certain also of our own minor poets have said, “like some great bourdon

in a minster tower”.

“Extraordinary wind, that, we had last night,” he said. “In my old home

we should have said someone had been whistling for it.”

“Should you, indeed!” said Parkins. “Is there a superstition of that

kind still current in your part of the country?”

“I don’t know about superstition,” said the Colonel. “They believe in

it all over Denmark and Norway, as well as on the Yorkshire coast; and

my experience is, mind you, that there’s generally something at the

bottom of what these country-folk hold to, and have held to for

generations. But it’s your drive” (or whatever it might have been: the

golfing reader will have to imagine appropriate digressions at the

proper intervals).

When conversation was resumed, Parkins said, with a slight hesitancy:

“A propos of what you were saying just now, Colonel, I think I ought to

tell you that my own views on such subjects are very strong. I am, in

fact, a convinced disbeliever in what is called the ‘supernatural’.”

“What!” said the Colonel, “do you mean to tell me you don’t believe in

second-sight, or ghosts, or anything of that kind?”

“In nothing whatever of that kind,” returned Parkins firmly.

“Well,” said the Colonel, “but it appears to me at that rate, sir, that

you must be little better than a Sadducee.”

Parkins was on the point of answering that, in his opinion, the

Sadducees were the most sensible persons he had ever read of in the Old

Testament; but, feeling some doubt as to whether much mention of them

was to be found in that work, he preferred to laugh the accusation off.

“Perhaps I am,” he said; “but—Here, give me my cleek, boy!—Excuse me

one moment, Colonel.” A short interval. “Now, as to whistling for the

wind, let me give you my theory about it. The laws which govern winds

are really not at all perfectly known—to fisherfolk and such, of

course, not known at all. A man or woman of eccentric habits, perhaps,

or a stranger, is seen repeatedly on the beach at some unusual hour,

and is heard whistling. Soon afterwards a violent wind rises; a man who

could read the sky perfectly or who possessed a barometer could have

foretold that it would. The simple people of a fishing-village have no

barometers, and only a few rough rules for prophesying weather. What

more natural than that the eccentric personage I postulated should be

regarded as having raised the wind, or that he or she should clutch

eagerly at the reputation of being able to do so? Now, take last

night’s wind: as it happens, I myself was whistling. I blew a whistle

twice, and the wind seemed to come absolutely in answer to my call. If

anyone had seen me—”

The audience had been a little restive under this harangue, and Parkins

had, I fear, fallen somewhat into the tone of a lecturer; but at the

last sentence the Colonel stopped.

“Whistling, were you?” he said. “And what sort of whistle did you use?

Play this stroke first.” Interval.

“About that whistle you were asking, Colonel. It’s rather a curious

one. I have it in my—No; I see I’ve left it in my room. As a matter of

fact, I found it yesterday.”

And then Parkins narrated the manner of his discovery of the whistle,

upon hearing which the Colonel grunted, and opined that, in Parkins’s

place, he should himself be careful about using a thing that had

belonged to a set of Papists, of whom, speaking generally, it might be

affirmed that you never knew what they might not have been up to. From

this topic he diverged to the enormities of the Vicar, who had given

notice on the previous Sunday that Friday would be the Feast of St

Thomas the Apostle, and that there would be service at eleven o’clock

in the church. This and other similar proceedings constituted in the

Colonel’s view a strong presumption that the Vicar was a concealed

Papist, if not a Jesuit; and Parkins, who could not very readily follow

the Colonel in this region, did not disagree with him. In fact, they

got on so well together in the morning that there was no talk on either

side of their separating after lunch.

Both continued to play well during the afternoon, or, at least, well

enough to make them forget everything else until the light began to

fail them. Not until then did Parkins remember that he had meant to do

some more investigating at the preceptory; but it was of no great

importance, he reflected. One day was as good as another; he might as

well go home with the Colonel.

As they turned the corner of the house, the Colonel was almost knocked

down by a boy who rushed into him at the very top of his speed, and

then, instead of running away, remained hanging on to him and panting.

The first words of the warrior were naturally those of reproof and

objurgation, but he very quickly discerned that the boy was almost

speechless with fright. Inquiries were useless at first. When the boy

got his breath he began to howl, and still clung to the Colonel’s legs.

He was at last detached, but continued to howl.

“What in the world _is_ the matter with you? What have you been up to?

What have you seen?” said the two men.

“Ow, I seen it wive at me out of the winder,” wailed the boy, “and I

don’t like it.”

“What window?” said the irritated Colonel. “Come, pull yourself

together, my boy.”

“The front winder it was, at the ’otel,” said the boy.

At this point Parkins was in favour of sending the boy home, but the

Colonel refused; he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he said; it was

most dangerous to give a boy such a fright as this one had had, and if

it turned out that people had been playing jokes, they should suffer

for it in some way. And by a series of questions he made out this

story: The boy had been playing about on the grass in front of the

Globe with some others; then they had gone home to their teas, and he

was just going, when he happened to look up at the front winder and see

it a-wiving at him. _It_ seemed to be a figure of some sort, in white

as far as he knew—couldn’t see its face; but it wived at him, and it

warn’t a right thing—not to say not a right person. Was there a light

in the room? No, he didn’t think to look if there was a light. Which

was the window? Was it the top one or the second one? The seckind one

it was—the big winder what got two little uns at the sides.

“Very well, my boy,” said the Colonel, after a few more questions. “You

run away home now. I expect it was some person trying to give you a

start. Another time, like a brave English boy, you just throw a

stone—well, no, not that exactly, but you go and speak to the waiter,

or to Mr Simpson, the landlord, and—yes—and say that I advised you to

do so.”

The boy’s face expressed some of the doubt he felt as to the likelihood

of Mr Simpson’s lending a favourable ear to his complaint, but the

Colonel did not appear to perceive this, and went on:

“And here’s a sixpence—no, I see it’s a shilling—and you be off home,

and don’t think any more about it.”

The youth hurried off with agitated thanks, and the Colonel and Parkins

went round to the front of the Globe and reconnoitred. There was only

one window answering to the description they had been hearing.

“Well, that’s curious,” said Parkins; “it’s evidently my window the lad

was talking about. Will you come up for a moment, Colonel Wilson? We

ought to be able to see if anyone has been taking liberties in my

room.”

They were soon in the passage, and Parkins made as if to open the door.

Then he stopped and felt in his pockets.

“This is more serious than I thought,” was his next remark. “I remember

now that before I started this morning I locked the door. It is locked

now, and, what is more, here is the key.” And he held it up. “Now,” he

went on, “if the servants are in the habit of going into one’s room

during the day when one is away, I can only say that—well, that I don’t

approve of it at all.” Conscious of a somewhat weak climax, he busied

himself in opening the door (which was indeed locked) and in lighting

candles. “No,” he said, “nothing seems disturbed.”

“Except your bed,” put in the Colonel.

“Excuse me, that isn’t my bed,” said Parkins. “I don’t use that one.

But it does look as if someone had been playing tricks with it.”

It certainly did: the clothes were bundled up and twisted together in a

most tortuous confusion. Parkins pondered.

“That must be it,” he said at last: “I disordered the clothes last

night in unpacking, and they haven’t made it since. Perhaps they came

in to make it, and that boy saw them through the window; and then they

were called away and locked the door after them. Yes, I think that must

be it.”

“Well, ring and ask,” said the Colonel, and this appealed to Parkins as

practical.

The maid appeared, and, to make a long story short, deposed that she

had made the bed in the morning when the gentleman was in the room, and

hadn’t been there since. No, she hadn’t no other key. Mr Simpson he

kep’ the keys; he’d be able to tell the gentleman if anyone had been

up.

This was a puzzle. Investigation showed that nothing of value had been

taken, and Parkins remembered the disposition of the small objects on

tables and so forth well enough to be pretty sure that no pranks had

been played with them. Mr and Mrs Simpson furthermore agreed that

neither of them had given the duplicate key of the room to any person

whatever during the day. Nor could Parkins, fair-minded man as he was,

detect anything in the demeanour of master, mistress, or maid that

indicated guilt. He was much more inclined to think that the boy had

been imposing on the Colonel.

The latter was unwontedly silent and pensive at dinner and throughout

the evening. When he bade goodnight to Parkins, he murmured in a gruff

undertone:

“You know where I am if you want me during the night.”

“Why, yes, thank you, Colonel Wilson, I think I do; but there isn’t

much prospect of my disturbing you, I hope. By the way,” he added, “did

I show you that old whistle I spoke of? I think not. Well, here it is.”

The Colonel turned it over gingerly in the light of the candle.

“Can you make anything of the inscription?” asked Parkins, as he took

it back.

“No, not in this light. What do you mean to do with it?”

“Oh, well, when I get back to Cambridge I shall submit it to some of

the archaeologists there, and see what they think of it; and very

likely, if they consider it worth having, I may present it to one of

the museums.”

“’M!” said the Colonel. “Well, you may be right. All I know is that, if

it were mine, I should chuck it straight into the sea. It’s no use

talking, I’m well aware, but I expect that with you it’s a case of live

and learn. I hope so, I’m sure, and I wish you a good night.”

He turned away, leaving Parkins in act to speak at the bottom of the

stair, and soon each was in his own bedroom.

By some unfortunate accident, there were neither blinds nor curtains to

the windows of the Professor’s room. The previous night he had thought

little of this, but tonight there seemed every prospect of a bright

moon rising to shine directly on his bed, and probably wake him later

on. When he noticed this he was a good deal annoyed, but, with an

ingenuity which I can only envy, he succeeded in rigging up, with the

help of a railway-rug, some safety-pins, and a stick and umbrella, a

screen which, if it only held together, would completely keep the

moonlight off his bed. And shortly afterwards he was comfortably in

that bed. When he had read a somewhat solid work long enough to produce

a decided wish for sleep, he cast a drowsy glance round the room, blew

out the candle, and fell back upon the pillow.

He must have slept soundly for an hour or more, when a sudden clatter

shook him up in a most unwelcome manner. In a moment he realized what

had happened: his carefully-constructed screen had given way, and a

very bright frosty moon was shining directly on his face. This was

highly annoying. Could he possibly get up and reconstruct the screen?

or could he manage to sleep if he did not?

For some minutes he lay and pondered over the possibilities; then he

turned over sharply, and with his eyes open lay breathlessly listening.

There had been a movement, he was sure, in the empty bed on the

opposite side of the room. Tomorrow he would have it moved, for there

must be rats or something playing about in it. It was quiet now. No!

the commotion began again. There was a rustling and shaking: surely

more than any rat could cause.

I can figure to myself something of the Professor’s bewilderment and

horror, for I have in a dream thirty years back seen the same thing

happen; but the reader will hardly, perhaps, imagine how dreadful it

was to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an

empty bed. He was out of his own bed in one bound, and made a dash

towards the window, where lay his only weapon, the stick with which he

had propped his screen. This was, as it turned out, the worst thing he

could have done, because the personage in the empty bed, with a sudden

smooth motion, slipped from the bed and took up a position, with

outspread arms, between the two beds, and in front of the door. Parkins

watched it in a horrid perplexity. Somehow, the idea of getting past it

and escaping through the door was intolerable to him; he could not have

borne—he didn’t know why—to touch it; and as for its touching him, he

would sooner dash himself through the window than have that happen. It

stood for the moment in a band of dark shadow, and he had not seen what

its face was like. Now it began to move, in a stooping posture, and all

at once the spectator realized, with some horror and some relief, that

it must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it with its muffled arms

in a groping and random fashion. Turning half away from him, it became

suddenly conscious of the bed he had just left, and darted towards it,

and bent and felt over the pillows in a way which made Parkins shudder

as he had never in his life thought it possible. In a very few moments

it seemed to know that the bed was empty, and then, moving forward into

the area of light and facing the window, it showed for the first time

what manner of thing it was.

Parkins, who very much dislikes being questioned about it, did once

describe something of it in my hearing, and I gathered that what he

chiefly remembers about it is a horrible, an intensely horrible, face

_of crumpled linen._ What expression he read upon it he could not or

would not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to maddening him is

certain.

But he was not at leisure to watch it for long. With formidable

quickness it moved into the middle of the room, and, as it groped and

waved, one corner of its draperies swept across Parkins’s face. He

could not, though he knew how perilous a sound was—he could not keep

back a cry of disgust, and this gave the searcher an instant clue. It

leapt towards him upon the instant, and the next moment he was half-way

through the window backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch

of his voice, and the linen face was thrust close into his own. At

this, almost the last possible second, deliverance came, as you will

have guessed: the Colonel burst the door open, and was just in time to

see the dreadful group at the window. When he reached the figures only

one was left. Parkins sank forward into the room in a faint, and before

him on the floor lay a tumbled heap of bed-clothes.

Colonel Wilson asked no questions, but busied himself in keeping

everyone else out of the room and in getting Parkins back to his bed;

and himself, wrapped in a rug, occupied the other bed, for the rest of

the night. Early on the next day Rogers arrived, more welcome than he

would have been a day before, and the three of them held a very long

consultation in the Professor’s room. At the end of it the Colonel left

the hotel door carrying a small object between his finger and thumb,

which he cast as far into the sea as a very brawny arm could send it.

Later on the smoke of a burning ascended from the back premises of the

Globe.

Exactly what explanation was patched up for the staff and visitors at

the hotel I must confess I do not recollect. The Professor was somehow

cleared of the ready suspicion of delirium tremens, and the hotel of

the reputation of a troubled house.

There is not much question as to what would have happened to Parkins if

the Colonel had not intervened when he did. He would either have fallen

out of the window or else lost his wits. But it is not so evident what

more the creature that came in answer to the whistle could have done

than frighten. There seemed to be absolutely nothing material about it

save the bedclothes of which it had made itself a body. The Colonel,

who remembered a not very dissimilar occurrence in India, was of the

opinion that if Parkins had closed with it it could really have done

very little, and that its one power was that of frightening. The whole

thing, he said, served to confirm his opinion of the Church of Rome.

There is really nothing more to tell, but, as you may imagine, the

Professor’s views on certain points are less clear cut than they used

to be. His nerves, too, have suffered: he cannot even now see a

surplice hanging on a door quite unmoved, and the spectacle of a

scarecrow in a field late on a winter afternoon has cost him more than

one sleepless night.

THE TREASURE OF ABBOT THOMAS

I

Verum usque in præsentem diem multa garriunt inter se Canonici de

abscondito quodam istius Abbatis Thomæ thesauro, quem sæpe, quanquam

adhuc incassum, quæsiverunt Steinfeldenses. Ipsum enim Thomam adhuc

florida in ætate existentem ingentem auri massam circa monasterium

defodisse perhibent; de quo multoties interrogatus ubi esset, cum risu

respondere solitus erat: “Job, Johannes, et Zacharias vel vobis vel

posteris indicabunt”; idemque aliquando adiicere se inventuris minime

invisurum. Inter alia huius Abbatis opera, hoc memoria præcipue dignum

iudico quod fenestram magnam in orientali parte alæ australis in

ecclesia sua imaginibus optime in vitro depictis impleverit: id quod et

ipsius effigies et insignia ibidem posita demonstrant. Domum quoque

Abbatialem fere totam restauravit: puteo in atrio ipsius effosso et

lapidibus marmoreis pulchre cælatis exornato. Decessit autem, morte

aliquantulum subitanea perculsus, ætatis suæ anno lxxiido,

incarnationis vero Dominiæ mdxxixo.

“I suppose I shall have to translate this,” said the antiquary to

himself, as he finished copying the above lines from that rather rare

and exceedingly diffuse book, the _Sertum Steinfeldense

Norbertinum._[5] “Well, it may as well be done first as last,” and

accordingly the following rendering was very quickly produced:

[5] An account of the Premonstratensian abbey of Steinfeld, in the

Eiffel, with lives of the Abbots, published at Cologne in 1712 by

Christian Albert Erhard, a resident in the district. The epithet

_Norbertinum_ is due to the fact that St Norbert was founder of the

Premonstratensian Order.

Up to the present day there is much gossip among the Canons about a

certain hidden treasure of this Abbot Thomas, for which those of

Steinfeld have often made search, though hitherto in vain. The story is

that Thomas, while yet in the vigour of life, concealed a very large

quantity of gold somewhere in the monastery. He was often asked where

it was, and always answered, with a laugh: “Job, John, and Zechariah

will tell either you or your successors.” He sometimes added that he

should feel no grudge against those who might find it. Among other

works carried out by this Abbot I may specially mention his filling the

great window at the east end of the south aisle of the church with

figures admirably painted on glass, as his effigy and arms in the

window attest. He also restored almost the whole of the Abbot’s

lodging, and dug a well in the court of it, which he adorned with

beautiful carvings in marble. He died rather suddenly in the

seventy-second year of his age, A.D. 1529.

The object which the antiquary had before him at the moment was that of

tracing the whereabouts of the painted windows of the Abbey Church of

Steinfeld. Shortly after the Revolution, a very large quantity of

painted glass made its way from the dissolved abbeys of Germany and

Belgium to this country, and may now be seen adorning various of our

parish churches, cathedrals, and private chapels. Steinfeld Abbey was

among the most considerable of these involuntary contributors to our

artistic possessions (I am quoting the somewhat ponderous preamble of

the book which the antiquary wrote), and the greater part of the glass

from that institution can be identified without much difficulty by the

help, either of the numerous inscriptions in which the place is

mentioned, or of the subjects of the windows, in which several

well-defined cycles or narratives were represented.

The passage with which I began my story had set the antiquary on the

track of another identification. In a private chapel—no matter where—he

had seen three large figures, each occupying a whole light in a window,

and evidently the work of one artist. Their style made it plain that

that artist had been a German of the sixteenth century; but hitherto

the more exact localizing of them had been a puzzle. They

represented—will you be surprised to hear it?—JOB PATRIARCHA, JOHANNES

EVANGELISTA, ZACHARIAS PROPHETA, and each of them held a book or

scroll, inscribed with a sentence from his writings. These, as a matter

of course, the antiquary had noted, and had been struck by the curious

way in which they differed from any text of the Vulgate that he had

been able to examine. Thus the scroll in Job’s hand was inscribed:

_Auro est locus in quo absconditur_ (for _conflatur_);[6] on the book

of John was: _Habent in vestimentis suis scripturam quam nemo novit_[7]

(for in _vestimento scriptum_, the following words being taken from

another verse); and Zacharias had: _Super lapidem unum septem oculi

sunt_[8] (which alone of the three presents an unaltered text).

[6] There is a place for gold where it is hidden.

[7] They have on their raiment a writing which no man knoweth.

[8] Upon one stone are seven eyes.

A sad perplexity it had been to our investigator to think why these

three personages should have been placed together in one window. There

was no bond of connexion between them, either historic, symbolic, or

doctrinal, and he could only suppose that they must have formed part of

a very large series of Prophets and Apostles, which might have filled,

say, all the clerestory windows of some capacious church. But the

passage from the _Sertum_ had altered the situation by showing that the

names of the actual personages represented in the glass now in Lord

D——’s chapel had been constantly on the lips of Abbot Thomas von

Eschenhausen of Steinfeld, and that this Abbot had put up a painted

window, probably about the year 1520, in the south aisle of his abbey

church. It was no very wild conjecture that the three figures might

have formed part of Abbot Thomas’s offering; it was one which,

moreover, could probably be confirmed or set aside by another careful

examination of the glass. And, as Mr. Somerton was a man of leisure, he

set out on pilgrimage to the private chapel with very little delay. His

conjecture was confirmed to the full. Not only did the style and

technique of the glass suit perfectly with the date and place required,

but in another window of the chapel he found some glass, known to have

been bought along with the figures, which contained the arms of Abbot

Thomas von Eschenhausen.

At intervals during his researches Mr. Somerton had been haunted by the

recollection of the gossip about the hidden treasure, and, as he

thought the matter over, it became more and more obvious to him that if

the Abbot meant anything by the enigmatical answer which he gave to his

questioners, he must have meant that the secret was to be found

somewhere in the window he had placed in the abbey church. It was

undeniable, furthermore, that the first of the curiously-selected texts

on the scrolls in the window might be taken to have a reference to

hidden treasure.

Every feature, therefore, or mark which could possibly assist in

elucidating the riddle which, he felt sure, the Abbot had set to

posterity he noted with scrupulous care, and, returning to his

Berkshire manor-house, consumed many a pint of the midnight oil over

his tracings and sketches. After two or three weeks, a day came when Mr

Somerton announced to his man that he must pack his own and his

master’s things for a short journey abroad, whither for the moment we

will not follow him.

II

Mr Gregory, the Rector of Parsbury, had strolled out before breakfast,

it being a fine autumn morning, as far as the gate of his

carriage-drive, with intent to meet the postman and sniff the cool air.

Nor was he disappointed of either purpose. Before he had had time to

answer more than ten or eleven of the miscellaneous questions

propounded to him in the lightness of their hearts by his young

offspring, who had accompanied him, the postman was seen approaching;

and among the morning’s budget was one letter bearing a foreign

postmark and stamp (which became at once the objects of an eager

competition among the youthful Gregorys), and was addressed in an

uneducated, but plainly an English hand.

When the Rector opened it, and turned to the signature, he realized

that it came from the confidential valet of his friend and squire, Mr.

Somerton. Thus it ran:

HONOURED SIR,

Has I am in a great anxiety about Master I write at is Wish to beg

you Sir if you could be so good as Step over. Master Has add a

Nastey Shock and keeps His Bedd. I never Have known Him like this

but No wonder and Nothing will serve but you Sir. Master says would

I mintion the Short Way Here is Drive to Cobblince and take a Trap.

Hopeing I Have maid all Plain, but am much Confused in Myself what

with Anxiatey and Weakfulness at Night. If I might be so Bold Sir

it will be a Pleasure to see a Honnest Brish Face among all These

Forig ones.

I am Sir

Your obedt Servt

William Brown.

P.S.—The Village for Town I will not Turm. It is name Steenfeld.

The reader must be left to picture to himself in detail the surprise,

confusion, and hurry of preparation into which the receipt of such a

letter would be likely to plunge a quiet Berkshire parsonage in the

year of grace 1859. It is enough for me to say that a train to town was

caught in the course of the day, and that Mr Gregory was able to secure

a cabin in the Antwerp boat and a place in the Coblentz train. Nor was

it difficult to manage the transit from that centre to Steinfeld.

I labour under a grave disadvantage as narrator of this story in that I

have never visited Steinfeld myself, and that neither of the principal

actors in the episode (from whom I derive my information) was able to

give me anything but a vague and rather dismal idea of its appearance.

I gather that it is a small place, with a large church despoiled of its

ancient fittings; a number of rather ruinous great buildings, mostly of

the seventeenth century, surround this church; for the abbey, in common

with most of those on the Continent, was rebuilt in a luxurious fashion

by its inhabitants at that period. It has not seemed to me worth while

to lavish money on a visit to the place, for though it is probably far

more attractive than either Mr Somerton or Mr Gregory thought it, there

is evidently little, if anything, of first-rate interest to be

seen—except, perhaps, one thing, which I should not care to see.

The inn where the English gentleman and his servant were lodged is, or

was, the only “possible” one in the village. Mr Gregory was taken to it

at once by his driver, and found Mr Brown waiting at the door. Mr

Brown, a model when in his Berkshire home of the impassive whiskered

race who are known as confidential valets, was now egregiously out of

his element, in a light tweed suit, anxious, almost irritable, and

plainly anything but master of the situation. His relief at the sight

of the “honest British face” of his Rector was unmeasured, but words to

describe it were denied him. He could only say:

“Well, I ham pleased, I’m sure, sir, to see you. And so I’m sure, sir,

will master.”

“How _is_ your master, Brown?” Mr Gregory eagerly put in.

“I think he’s better, sir, thank you; but he’s had a dreadful time of

it. I ’ope he’s gettin’ some sleep now, but—”

“What has been the matter—I couldn’t make out from your letter? Was it

an accident of any kind?”

“Well, sir, I ’ardly know whether I’d better speak about it. Master was

very partickler he should be the one to tell you. But there’s no bones

broke—that’s one thing I’m sure we ought to be thankful—”

“What does the doctor say?” asked Mr Gregory.

They were by this time outside Mr Somerton’s bedroom door, and speaking

in low tones. Mr Gregory, who happened to be in front, was feeling for

the handle, and chanced to run his fingers over the panels. Before

Brown could answer, there was a terrible cry from within the room.

“In God’s name, who is that?” were the first words they heard. “Brown,

is it?”

“Yes, sir—me, sir, and Mr Gregory,” Brown hastened to answer, and there

was an audible groan of relief in reply.

They entered the room, which was darkened against the afternoon sun,

and Mr Gregory saw, with a shock of pity, how drawn, how damp with

drops of fear, was the usually calm face of his friend, who, sitting up

in the curtained bed, stretched out a shaking hand to welcome him.

“Better for seeing you, my dear Gregory,” was the reply to the Rector’s

first question, and it was palpably true.

After five minutes of conversation Mr Somerton was more his own man,

Brown afterwards reported, than he had been for days. He was able to

eat a more than respectable dinner, and talked confidently of being fit

to stand a journey to Coblentz within twenty-four hours.

“But there’s one thing,” he said, with a return of agitation which Mr

Gregory did not like to see, “which I must beg you to do for me, my

dear Gregory. Don’t,” he went on, laying his hand on Gregory’s to

forestall any interruption—“don’t ask me what it is, or why I want it

done. I’m not up to explaining it yet; it would throw me back—undo all

the good you have done me by coming. The only word I will say about it

is that you run no risk whatever by doing it, and that Brown can and

will show you tomorrow what it is. It’s merely to put back—to

keep—something—No; I can’t speak of it yet. Do you mind calling Brown?”

“Well, Somerton,” said Mr Gregory, as he crossed the room to the door,

“I won’t ask for any explanations till you see fit to give them. And if

this bit of business is as easy as you represent it to be, I will very

gladly undertake it for you the first thing in the morning.”

“Ah, I was sure you would, my dear Gregory; I was certain I could rely

on you. I shall owe you more thanks than I can tell. Now, here is

Brown. Brown, one word with you.”

“Shall I go?” interjected Mr Gregory.

“Not at all. Dear me, no. Brown, the first thing tomorrow morning—(you

don’t mind early hours, I know, Gregory)—you must take the Rector

to—_there_, you know” (a nod from Brown, who looked grave and anxious),

“and he and you will put that back. You needn’t be in the least

alarmed; it’s _perfectly_ safe in the daytime. You know what I mean. It

lies on the step, you know, where—where we put it.” (Brown swallowed

dryly once or twice, and, failing to speak, bowed.) “And—yes, that’s

all. Only this one other word, my dear Gregory. If you _can_ manage to

keep from questioning Brown about this matter, I shall be still more

bound to you. Tomorrow evening, at latest, if all goes well, I shall be

able, I believe, to tell you the whole story from start to finish. And

now I’ll wish you good night. Brown will be with me—he sleeps here—and

if I were you, I should lock my door. Yes, be particular to do that.

They—they like it, the people here, and it’s better. Good night, good

night.”

They parted upon this, and if Mr Gregory woke once or twice in the

small hours and fancied he heard a fumbling about the lower part of his

locked door, it was, perhaps, no more than what a quiet man, suddenly

plunged into a strange bed and the heart of a mystery, might reasonably

expect. Certainly he thought, to the end of his days, that he had heard

such a sound twice or three times between midnight and dawn.

He was up with the sun, and out in company with Brown soon after.

Perplexing as was the service he had been asked to perform for Mr

Somerton, it was not a difficult or an alarming one, and within half an

hour from his leaving the inn it was over. What it was I shall not as

yet divulge.

Later in the morning Mr Somerton, now almost himself again, was able to

make a start from Steinfeld; and that same evening, whether at Coblentz

or at some intermediate stage on the journey I am not certain, he

settled down to the promised explanation. Brown was present, but how

much of the matter was ever really made plain to his comprehension he

would never say, and I am unable to conjecture.

III

This was Mr Somerton’s story:

“You know roughly, both of you, that this expedition of mine was

undertaken with the object of tracing something in connexion with some

old painted glass in Lord D——’s private chapel. Well, the

starting-point of the whole matter lies in this passage from an old

printed book, to which I will ask your attention.”

And at this point Mr Somerton went carefully over some ground with

which we are already familiar.

“On my second visit to the chapel,” he went on, “my purpose was to take

every note I could of figures, lettering, diamond-scratchings on the

glass, and even apparently accidental markings. The first point which I

tackled was that of the inscribed scrolls. I could not doubt that the

first of these, that of Job—‘There is a place for the gold where it is

hidden’—with its intentional alteration, must refer to the treasure; so

I applied myself with some confidence to the next, that of St

John—‘They have on their vestures a writing which no man knoweth.’ The

natural question will have occurred to you: Was there an inscription on

the robes of the figures? I could see none; each of the three had a

broad black border to his mantle, which made a conspicuous and rather

ugly feature in the window. I was nonplussed, I will own, and, but for

a curious bit of luck, I think I should have left the search where the

Canons of Steinfeld had left it before me. But it so happened that

there was a good deal of dust on the surface of the glass, and Lord

D——, happening to come in, noticed my blackened hands, and kindly

insisted on sending for a Turk’s head broom to clean down the window.

There must, I suppose, have been a rough piece in the broom; anyhow, as

it passed over the border of one of the mantles, I noticed that it left

a long scratch, and that some yellow stain instantly showed up. I asked

the man to stop his work for a moment, and ran up the ladder to examine

the place. The yellow stain was there, sure enough, and what had come

away was a thick black pigment, which had evidently been laid on with

the brush after the glass had been burnt, and could therefore be easily

scraped off without doing any harm. I scraped, accordingly, and you

will hardly believe—no, I do you an injustice; you will have guessed

already—that I found under this black pigment two or three

clearly-formed capital letters in yellow stain on a clear ground. Of

course, I could hardly contain my delight.

“I told Lord D—— that I had detected an inscription which I thought

might be very interesting, and begged to be allowed to uncover the

whole of it. He made no difficulty about it whatever, told me to do

exactly as I pleased, and then, having an engagement, was

obliged—rather to my relief, I must say—to leave me. I set to work at

once, and found the task a fairly easy one. The pigment, disintegrated,

of course, by time, came off almost at a touch, and I don’t think that

it took me a couple of hours, all told, to clean the whole of the black

borders in all three lights. Each of the figures had, as the

inscription said, ‘a writing on their vestures which nobody knew’.

“This discovery, of course, made it absolutely certain to my mind that

I was on the right track. And, now, what was the inscription? While I

was cleaning the glass I almost took pains not to read the lettering,

saving up the treat until I had got the whole thing clear. And when

that was done, my dear Gregory, I assure you I could almost have cried

from sheer disappointment. What I read was only the most hopeless

jumble of letters that was ever shaken up in a hat. Here it is:

_Job_. DREVICIOPEDMOOMSMVIVLISLCAVIBASBATAOVT _St

John_. RDIIEAMRLESIPVSPODSEEIRSETTAAESGIAVNNR

_Zechariah_. DREVICIOPEDMOOMSMVIVLISLCAVIBASBATAOVT

“Blank as I felt and must have looked for the first few minutes, my

disappointment didn’t last long. I realized almost at once that I was

dealing with a cipher or cryptogram; and I reflected that it was likely

to be of a pretty simple kind, considering its early date. So I copied

the letters with the most anxious care. Another little point, I may

tell you, turned up in the process which confirmed my belief in the

cipher. After copying the letters on Job’s robe I counted them, to make

sure that I had them right. There were thirty-eight; and, just as I

finished going through them, my eye fell on a scratching made with a

sharp point on the edge of the border. It was simply the number xxxviii

in Roman numerals. To cut the matter short, there was a similar note,

as I may call it, in each of the other lights; and that made it plain

to me that the glass-painter had had very strict orders from Abbot

Thomas about the inscription, and had taken pains to get it correct.

“Well, after that discovery you may imagine how minutely I went over

the whole surface of the glass in search of further light. Of course, I

did not neglect the inscription on the scroll of Zechariah—‘Upon one

stone are seven eyes,’ but I very quickly concluded that this must

refer to some mark on a stone which could only be found _in situ_,

where the treasure was concealed. To be short, I made all possible

notes and sketches and tracings, and then came back to Parsbury to work

out the cipher at leisure. Oh, the agonies I went through! I thought

myself very clever at first, for I made sure that the key would be

found in some of the old books on secret writing. The _Steganographia_

of Joachim Trithemius, who was an earlier contemporary of Abbot Thomas,

seemed particularly promising; so I got that and Selenius’s

_Cryptographia_ and Bacon’s _de Augmentis Scientiarum_ and some more.

But I could hit upon nothing. Then I tried the principle of the ‘most

frequent letter’, taking first Latin and then German as a basis. That

didn’t help, either; whether it ought to have done so, I am not clear.

And then I came back to the window itself, and read over my notes,

hoping almost against hope that the Abbot might himself have somewhere

supplied the key I wanted. I could make nothing out of the colour or

pattern of the robes. There were no landscape backgrounds with

subsidiary objects; there was nothing in the canopies. The only

resource possible seemed to be in the attitudes of the figures. ‘Job,’

I read: ‘scroll in left hand, forefinger of right hand extended

upwards. John: holds inscribed book in left hand; with right hand

blesses, with two fingers. Zechariah: scroll in left hand; right hand

extended upwards, as Job, but with three fingers pointing up.’ In other

words, I reflected, Job has _one_ finger extended, John has _two_,

Zechariah has _three_. May not there be a numeral key concealed in

that? My dear Gregory,” said Mr Somerton, laying his hand on his

friend’s knee, “that _was_ the key. I didn’t get it to fit at first,

but after two or three trials I saw what was meant. After the first

letter of the inscription you skip _one_ letter, after the next you

skip _two_, and after that skip _three_. Now look at the result I got.

I’ve underlined the letters which form words:

[D]R[E]VI[C]IOP[E]D[M]OO[M]SMV[I]V[L]IS[L]CAV[I]B[A]SB[A]TAO[V]T

[R]DI[I]EAM[R]L[E]SI[P]VSP[O]D[S]EE[I]RSE[T]T[A]AE[S]GIA[V]N[N]R

F[T]EEA[I]L[N]QD[P]VAI[V]M[T]LE[E]ATT[O]H[I]OO[N]VMC[A]A[T].H.Q.E.

“Do you see it? ‘_Decem millia auri reposita sunt in puteo in at_. . .’

(Ten thousand [pieces] of gold are laid up in a well in …), followed by

an incomplete word beginning _at_. So far so good. I tried the same

plan with the remaining letters; but it wouldn’t work, and I fancied

that perhaps the placing of dots after the three last letters might

indicate some difference of procedure. Then I thought to myself,

‘Wasn’t there some allusion to a well in the account of Abbot Thomas in

that book the “_Sertum_”?’ Yes, there was: he built a _puteus in atrio_

(a well in the court). There, of course, was my word _atrio_. The next

step was to copy out the remaining letters of the inscription, omitting

those I had already used. That gave what you will see on this slip:

RVIIOPDOOSMVVISCAVBSBTAOTDIEAMLSIVSPDEERSETAEGIANRFEEALQDVAIMLEATTHOOVM

CA.H.Q.E.

“Now, I knew what the three first letters I wanted were—namely,

_rio_—to complete the word _atrio_; and, as you will see, these are all

to be found in the first five letters. I was a little confused at first

by the occurrence of two _i’s_, but very soon I saw that every

alternate letter must be taken in the remainder of the inscription. You

can work it out for yourself; the result, continuing where the first

‘round’ left off, is this:

‘_rio domus abbatialis de Steinfeld a me, Thoma, qui posui custodem

super ea. Gare à qui la touche_’.

“So the whole secret was out:

‘Ten thousand pieces of gold are laid up in the well in the court of

the Abbot’s house of Steinfeld by me, Thomas, who have set a guardian

over them. _Gare à qui la touche_.’

“The last words, I ought to say, are a device which Abbot Thomas had

adopted. I found it with his arms in another piece of glass at Lord

D——’s, and he drafted it bodily into his cipher, though it doesn’t

quite fit in point of grammar.

“Well, what would any human being have been tempted to do, my dear

Gregory, in my place? Could he have helped setting off, as I did, to

Steinfeld, and tracing the secret literally to the fountain-head? I

don’t believe he could. Anyhow, I couldn’t, and, as I needn’t tell you,

I found myself at Steinfeld as soon as the resources of civilization

could put me there, and installed myself in the inn you saw. I must

tell you that I was not altogether free from forebodings—on one hand of

disappointment, on the other of danger. There was always the

possibility that Abbot Thomas’s well might have been wholly

obliterated, or else that someone, ignorant of cryptograms, and guided

only by luck, might have stumbled on the treasure before me. And

then”—there was a very perceptible shaking of the voice here—’I was not

entirely easy, I need not mind confessing, as to the meaning of the

words about the guardian of the treasure. But, if you don’t mind, I’ll

say no more about that until—until it becomes necessary.

“At the first possible opportunity Brown and I began exploring the

place. I had naturally represented myself as being interested in the

remains of the abbey, and we could not avoid paying a visit to the

church, impatient as I was to be elsewhere. Still, it did interest me

to see the windows where the glass had been, and especially that at the

east end of the south aisle. In the tracery lights of that I was

startled to see some fragments and coats-of-arms remaining—Abbot

Thomas’s shield was there, and a small figure with a scroll inscribed

_Oculos habent, et non videbunt_ (They have eyes, and shall not see),

which, I take it, was a hit of the Abbot at his Canons.

“But, of course, the principal object was to find the Abbot’s house.

There is no prescribed place for this, so far as I know, in the plan of

a monastery; you can’t predict of it, as you can of the chapter-house,

that it will be on the eastern side of the cloister, or, as of the

dormitory, that it will communicate with a transept of the church. I

felt that if I asked many questions I might awaken lingering memories

of the treasure, and I thought it best to try first to discover it for

myself. It was not a very long or difficult search. That three-sided

court south-east of the church, with deserted piles of building round

it, and grass-grown pavement, which you saw this morning, was the

place. And glad enough I was to see that it was put to no use, and was

neither very far from our inn nor overlooked by any inhabited building;

there were only orchards and paddocks on the slopes east of the church.

I can tell you that fine stone glowed wonderfully in the rather watery

yellow sunset that we had on the Tuesday afternoon.

“Next, what about the well? There was not much doubt about that, as you

can testify. It is really a very remarkable thing. That curb is, I

think, of Italian marble, and the carving I thought must be Italian

also. There were reliefs, you will perhaps remember, of Eliezer and

Rebekah, and of Jacob opening the well for Rachel, and similar

subjects; but, by way of disarming suspicion, I suppose, the Abbot had

carefully abstained from any of his cynical and allusive inscriptions.

“I examined the whole structure with the keenest interest, of course—a

square well-head with an opening in one side; an arch over it, with a

wheel for the rope to pass over, evidently in very good condition

still, for it had been used within sixty years, or perhaps even later,

though not quite recently. Then there was the question of depth and

access to the interior. I suppose the depth was about sixty to seventy

feet; and as to the other point, it really seemed as if the Abbot had

wished to lead searchers up to the very door of his treasure-house,

for, as you tested for yourself, there were big blocks of stone bonded

into the masonry, and leading down in a regular staircase round and

round the inside of the well.

“It seemed almost too good to be true. I wondered if there was a

trap—if the stones were so contrived as to tip over when a weight was

placed on them; but I tried a good many with my own weight and with my

stick, and all seemed, and actually were, perfectly firm. Of course, I

resolved that Brown and I would make an experiment that very night.

“I was well prepared. Knowing the sort of place I should have to

explore, I had brought a sufficiency of good rope and bands of webbing

to surround my body, and cross-bars to hold to, as well as lanterns and

candles and crowbars, all of which would go into a single carpet-bag

and excite no suspicion. I satisfied myself that my rope would be long

enough, and that the wheel for the bucket was in good working order,

and then we went home to dinner.

“I had a little cautious conversation with the landlord, and made out

that he would not be overmuch surprised if I went out for a stroll with

my man about nine o’clock, to make (Heaven forgive me!) a sketch of the

abbey by moonlight. I asked no questions about the well, and am not

likely to do so now. I fancy I know as much about it as anyone in

Steinfeld: at least”—with a strong shudder—“I don’t want to know any

more.

“Now we come to the crisis, and, though I hate to think of it, I feel

sure, Gregory, that it will be better for me in all ways to recall it

just as it happened. We started, Brown and I, at about nine with our

bag, and attracted no attention; for we managed to slip out at the

hinder end of the inn-yard into an alley which brought us quite to the

edge of the village. In five minutes we were at the well, and for some

little time we sat on the edge of the well-head to make sure that no

one was stirring or spying on us. All we heard was some horses cropping

grass out of sight farther down the eastern slope. We were perfectly

unobserved, and had plenty of light from the gorgeous full moon to

allow us to get the rope properly fitted over the wheel. Then I secured

the band round my body beneath the arms. We attached the end of the

rope very securely to a ring in the stonework. Brown took the lighted

lantern and followed me; I had a crowbar. And so we began to descend

cautiously, feeling every step before we set foot on it, and scanning

the walls in search of any marked stone.

“Half aloud I counted the steps as we went down, and we got as far as

the thirty-eighth before I noted anything at all irregular in the

surface of the masonry. Even here there was no mark, and I began to

feel very blank, and to wonder if the Abbot’s cryptogram could possibly

be an elaborate hoax. At the forty-ninth step the staircase ceased. It

was with a very sinking heart that I began retracing my steps, and when

I was back on the thirty-eighth—Brown, with the lantern, being a step

or two above me—I scrutinized the little bit of irregularity in the

stonework with all my might; but there was no vestige of a mark.

“Then it struck me that the texture of the surface looked just a little

smoother than the rest, or, at least, in some way different. It might

possibly be cement and not stone. I gave it a good blow with my iron

bar. There was a decidedly hollow sound, though that might be the

result of our being in a well. But there was more. A great flake of

cement dropped on to my feet, and I saw marks on the stone underneath.

I had tracked the Abbot down, my dear Gregory; even now I think of it

with a certain pride. It took but a very few more taps to clear the

whole of the cement away, and I saw a slab of stone about two feet

square, upon which was engraven a cross. Disappointment again, but only

for a moment. It was you, Brown, who reassured me by a casual remark.

You said, if I remember right:

“‘It’s a funny cross: looks like a lot of eyes.’

“I snatched the lantern out of your hand, and saw with inexpressible

pleasure that the cross _was_ composed of seven eyes, four in a

vertical line, three horizontal. The last of the scrolls in the window

was explained in the way I had anticipated. Here was my ‘stone with the

seven eyes’. So far the Abbot’s data had been exact, and, as I thought

of this, the anxiety about the ‘guardian’ returned upon me with

increased force. Still, I wasn’t going to retreat now.

“Without giving myself time to think, I knocked away the cement all

round the marked stone, and then gave it a prise on the right side with

my crowbar. It moved at once, and I saw that it was but a thin light

slab, such as I could easily lift out myself, and that it stopped the

entrance to a cavity. I did lift it out unbroken, and set it on the

step, for it might be very important to us to be able to replace it.

Then I waited for several minutes on the step just above. I don’t know

why, but I think to see if any dreadful thing would rush out. Nothing

happened. Next I lit a candle, and very cautiously I placed it inside

the cavity, with some idea of seeing whether there were foul air, and

of getting a glimpse of what was inside. There _was_ some foulness of

air which nearly extinguished the flame, but in no long time it burned

quite steadily. The hole went some little way back, and also on the

right and left of the entrance, and I could see some rounded

light-coloured objects within which might be bags. There was no use in

waiting. I faced the cavity, and looked in. There was nothing

immediately in the front of the hole. I put my arm in and felt to the

right, very gingerly….

“Just give me a glass of cognac, Brown. I’ll go on in a moment,

Gregory….

“Well, I felt to the right, and my fingers touched something curved,

that felt—yes—more or less like leather; dampish it was, and evidently

part of a heavy, full thing. There was nothing, I must say, to alarm

one. I grew bolder, and putting both hands in as well as I could, I

pulled it to me, and it came. It was heavy, but moved more easily than

I had expected. As I pulled it towards the entrance, my left elbow

knocked over and extinguished the candle. I got the thing fairly in

front of the mouth and began drawing it out. Just then Brown gave a

sharp ejaculation and ran quickly up the steps with the lantern. He

will tell you why in a moment. Startled as I was, I looked round after

him, and saw him stand for a minute at the top and then walk away a few

yards. Then I heard him call softly, ‘All right, sir,’ and went on

pulling out the great bag, in complete darkness. It hung for an instant

on the edge of the hole, then slipped forward on to my chest, and _put

its arms round my neck_.

“My dear Gregory, I am telling you the exact truth. I believe I am now

acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can

endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now

the bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible

smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and

moving slowly over it, and of several—I don’t know how many—legs or

arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body. I screamed out,

Brown says, like a beast, and fell away backward from the step on which

I stood, and the creature slipped downwards, I suppose, on to that same

step. Providentially the band round me held firm. Brown did not lose

his head, and was strong enough to pull me up to the top and get me

over the edge quite promptly. How he managed it exactly I don’t know,

and I think he would find it hard to tell you. I believe he contrived

to hide our implements in the deserted building near by, and with very

great difficulty he got me back to the inn. I was in no state to make

explanations, and Brown knows no German; but next morning I told the

people some tale of having had a bad fall in the abbey ruins, which, I

suppose, they believed. And now, before I go further, I should just

like you to hear what Brown’s experiences during those few minutes

were. Tell the Rector, Brown, what you told me.”

“Well, sir,” said Brown, speaking low and nervously, “it was just this

way. Master was busy down in front of the ’ole, and I was ’olding the

lantern and looking on, when I ’eard somethink drop in the water from

the top, as I thought. So I looked up, and I see someone’s ’ead lookin’

over at us. I s’pose I must ha’ said somethink, and I ’eld the light up

and run up the steps, and my light shone right on the face. That was a

bad un, sir, if ever I see one! A holdish man, and the face very much

fell in, and larfin’, as I thought. And I got up the steps as quick

pretty nigh as I’m tellin’ you, and when I was out on the ground there

warn’t a sign of any person. There ’adn’t been the time for anyone to

get away, let alone a hold chap, and I made sure he warn’t crouching

down by the well, nor nothink. Next thing I hear master cry out

somethink ’orrible, and hall I see was him hanging out by the rope,

and, as master says, ’owever I got him up I couldn’t tell you.”

“You hear that, Gregory?” said Mr Somerton. “Now, does any explanation

of that incident strike you?”

“The whole thing is so ghastly and abnormal that I must own it puts me

quite off my balance; but the thought did occur to me that possibly

the—well, the person who set the trap might have come to see the

success of his plan.”

“Just so, Gregory, just so. I can think of nothing else so—_likely_, I

should say, if such a word had a place anywhere in my story. I think it

must have been the Abbot…. Well, I haven’t much more to tell you. I

spent a miserable night, Brown sitting up with me. Next day I was no

better; unable to get up; no doctor to be had; and, if one had been

available, I doubt if he could have done much for me. I made Brown

write off to you, and spent a second terrible night. And, Gregory, of

this I am sure, and I think it affected me more than the first shock,

for it lasted longer: there was someone or something on the watch

outside my door the whole night. I almost fancy there were two. It

wasn’t only the faint noises I heard from time to time all through the

dark hours, but there was the smell—the hideous smell of mould. Every

rag I had had on me on that first evening I had stripped off and made

Brown take it away. I believe he stuffed the things into the stove in

his room; and yet the smell was there, as intense as it had been in the

well; and, what is more, it came from outside the door. But with the

first glimmer of dawn it faded out, and the sounds ceased, too; and

that convinced me that the thing or things were creatures of darkness,

and could not stand the daylight; and so I was sure that if anyone

could put back the stone, it or they would be powerless until someone

else took it away again. I had to wait until you came to get that done.

Of course, I couldn’t send Brown to do it by himself, and still less

could I tell anyone who belonged to the place.

“Well, there is my story; and, if you don’t believe it, I can’t help

it. But I think you do.”

“Indeed,” said Mr Gregory, “I can find no alternative. I _must_ believe

it! I saw the well and the stone myself, and had a glimpse, I thought,

of the bags or something else in the hole. And, to be plain with you,

Somerton, I believe my door was watched last night, too.”

“I dare say it was, Gregory; but, thank goodness, that is over. Have

you, by the way, anything to tell about your visit to that dreadful

place?”

“Very little,” was the answer. “Brown and I managed easily enough to

get the slab into its place, and he fixed it very firmly with the irons

and wedges you had desired him to get, and we contrived to smear the

surface with mud so that it looks just like the rest of the wall. One

thing I did notice in the carving on the well-head, which I think must

have escaped you. It was a horrid, grotesque shape—perhaps more like a

toad than anything else, and there was a label by it inscribed with the

two words, ‘Depositum custodi’.”[9]

[9] “Keep that which is committed to thee.”