Page:Once a Week Dec 1860 to June 61.pdf/114

. 19, 1861.] name is given to this room? It looks ominous of some evil deed,” I said.

“It is called ‘t’ould Squire’s Murder Room,’ by the people who know the story connected with it.”

“Ah!” I said; “then I may look for a ghost there?”

“You will perhaps see one, or more, if you stay long enough,” said Mr. Erle, with the utmost composure. “This way.”

I followed him along a gallery on the first floor to the door of a room. He opened it, and we entered what had been apparently one of the principal bedrooms. It was a regular lady’s chamber, of the seventeenth century, with dark plumes waving on the top of the bed-pillars of black oak. The massy toilette, with its oval looking-glass, set in silver and shrouded in old lace—the carved chairs and lofty mantelpiece—gave an air of quaint elegance to the dignity of the apartment. I had but little time to examine the objects here, for Mr. Erle had passed on to an inner room, which was reached by ascending a short flight of steps.

“Come up here,” cried a voice which did not sound like Mr. Erle’s. I ran up the stairs and found him alone in a small room which contained little else than an escritoire, a cabinet, and two great chairs. On one side, a large Parisian looking-glass, à la Régence, was fixed on the wall. The branches for lights still held some yellow bits of wax-candle covered with dust. I joined Mr. Erle, who was looking through the window over a vast expanse of mountainous moorland. “What a grand prospect!” I exclaimed. “I like these two rooms very much. I shall certainly come and live here.”

“You shall tell me your opinion about that to-morrow,” said Mr. Erle. “I must go now.”

Concealing as much as possible the contempt I felt for his absurd superstition, I accompanied him down-stairs again. “Are these the only rooms worth looking at?” I asked.

“No; most of the rooms are good enough for a gentleman’s household. The rooms I have shown you, and the passages and staircase which lead from one to the other, are the only portions of the house in which you are subjected to annoyance. I have slept in both the rooms, and advise no one else to do so.”

“You had bad dreams?” I asked, with an involuntary smile, as I took my gun from the hall-table, where I had left it.

“As you please,” said Mr. Erle, smiling also.

I stretched out my hand to him when we stood at the gate together.

“Good night!” said I. “I think I shall sleep in one of those rooms, and return to you in the morning.”

Mr. Erle shook his head. “You will be back at my house within three hours, Tom Whinmore; so, au revoir!”

He strode away over the moor. His fine figure appeared almost gigantic as it moved between me and the setting sun.

“That does not look like a man who should be a prey to weak superstition, any more than good Ralph Thirlston, who drove home alone willingly enough past this same gate and fence at nine o’clock last night! The witching hour, it seems, is just after sunset. Well, it wants a quarter of an hour of that now,” I continued, thinking silently. “There will be time enough for me to explore the garden a little, before I return to the house and wait for my evening’s entertainment.”

As I walked through the shrubbery, I recollected the figure I had seen outside the fence on the previous evening. I must find out how that trick is managed, thought I, and if I get a chance I will certainly wing that ghost, pour encourager les autres.

Ascertaining, as well as I was able, the part of the shrubbery near which I saw the man, I began to search for footsteps or marks of human ingenuity. I soon discovered the elder bush that had sent some of its branches through a hole in the fence. I crept round it, and examined the fence. No plank was loose, though some boughs had grown through the hole. I could see no footstep except my own on the moist, dank leafy mould. I got over the fence and saw no marks outside. Baffled, and yet suspicious, I went back and continued my walk, in the course of which I came upon sundry broken and decayed summer-houses and seats. In the tangled flower-garden, on the south-west side, were a few rich blossoms, growing amicably with the vilest weeds. I tore up a great root of hemlock to get at a branch of Provence rose, and then seeing that the sun had disappeared below the opposite fell, I pursued my course and arrived again at the broad gravel path leading from the gate to the hall-door.

Both stood open, as I had left them. I lingered on the grass-grown steps to look at the last rays of the sun, reddening the heather on the distant fell. As I leaned on my gun enjoying the profound stillness of this place, far from all sounds of village, or wood, or sea—a stillness that seemed to deepen and deepen into unearthly intensity—the charm was broken by a human voice speaking near me—the tone was hollow and full of agony—“''Bring me a light! Bring me a light!''” it cried. It was like a sick or dying man. The voice came, I thought, from the room next to me on the right hand of the Hall. I rushed into the house and to the door of that room; it was the first which Mr. Erle had shown me. I remembered shutting the door—it now stood wide open; and there was a sound of hurrying footsteps within.

“Who is there?” I shouted. No answer came. But there passed by me, as it were, in the very doorway, the figure of a young and, as I could see at a glance, very beautiful woman.

When she moved onwards I could not choose but follow, trembling with an indefinable fear, yet borne on by a mystic attraction. At the foot of the stairs she turned on me again, and smiled, and beckoned me with an upraised arm, whereon great jewels flashed in the gloom. I followed her quickly, but could not overtake her. My limbs—I am not ashamed to say it—shook with strange fear; yet I could not turn back from following that fair form. Onward she led me—up the stairs and through the gallery to the door of the lady’s chamber. There she paused a moment, and again turned her bewitching face, radiant with smiles, upon me before she disappeared within the dark doorway. I followed into the room, and saw her