The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories Page 9

  “Be ye t’maister, lad?”

  “I am, Mr. Thirlston,” said I. “My name is Whinmore.”

  “Maister Tom!”

  “The same. Do you know anything about me and my old house?”

  “ ’Deed do I. You’re the heir of t’ould leddy. Mr. Erle is your guardian, and farms your lands.”

  “I know so much, myself,” I replied. “I want you to tell me who lives in Whinmore Hall now, and whether I can get a dinner there, for I’m clem, as you say here.”

  “Weel, weel. It is a sore trial to a young stomach! You must e’en bear it till we get to Mr. Erle’s.”

  “But surely there is somebody, some old woman or other, who lives in the old house and airs the rooms!”

  “ ’Deed is there. But it’s nobbut ghosts and deevil’s spawn of that sort.”

  “I am surprised, Mr. Thirlston, to hear a man like you talk such nonsense.”

  “What like man do ye happen know that I am, Maister Whinmore? Tho’ if I talk nonsense (and I’m no gainsaying what a learned colleger like you can tell about nonsense), yet it’s just the things I have heard and seen mysell I am speaking of.”

  “What have you heard and seen at Whinmore Hall?”

  “What a’ body hears and sees to Whinmore, ’twixt sunset and moonlight;—and what I used to see times and oft, when I lived there farming-man to t’ould Leddy Jane,—what I’m not curious to see again, now. So get on, Timothy,” he added to the horse, “or we may chance to come in for a fright.”

  I did not trouble myself about the delay, as he did, but watched him.

  This man is no fool, I thought. I wonder what strange delusion has got possession of the people about this old house of mine. I remembered that Mr. Erle had told me in one of the very few letters I ever received from him, that it was difficult to find a tenant for Whinmore Hall. Curiosity took precedence of hunger, and I began to think how I could best soothe my irritated companion, and get him to tell me what he believed.

  We were back on the road again, and going across the shoulder of a great fell;—the sun had just disappeared behind a distant range of similar fells; it left no rosy clouds, no orange streaks in the sky—black rain-clouds spread all over the great concave, and in a very few minutes they burst upon us. There was a cold, piercing wind in our teeth. I felt my spirits rise. The vast monotonous moor, the threatening sky, and the fierce rushing blast had something for me sublime and invigorating. I looked round at the new range of moorland which we were gradually commanding, as we rounded the hill.

  “I like this wild place, Mr. Thirlston,” I said.

  “Wild enough!” he grumbled in reply. “ ’Tis college learning is a deal better than such house and land. Beggars won’t live in th’ house, and th’ land is the poorest in all England.”

  “Is that the house, yonder, on the right?”

  “There’s na ither house, good or bad, to be seen from this,” he replied: but I observed that he did not turn his head in the direction I had indicated. He kept a look-out straight between the horse’s ears; I, on the contrary, never took my eyes off the grey building which we were approaching. Nearer and nearer we came, and I saw that there was a sort of large garden or pleasure-ground enclosed round the house, and that the road ran past a part of this enclosure, and also past a large open-worked iron gate, which was the chief entrance. Very desolate, cold, and inhospitable looked this old house of mine; wild and tangled looked the garden. The tall, smokeless chimneys were numerous, and stood up white against the blackness of the sky; the windows, more numerous still, looked black, in contrast with the whitish-grey stone of the walls. Just as we entered the shadow cast by the trees of the shrubbery, our horse snorted, and sprang several yards from the enclosure.

  “Now for it! It is your own fault for running away, and bringing us late,” muttered Ralph Thirlston, grasping the reins and standing up to get a better hold of the horse. Timothy now stood still; and to my surprise he was trembling in every limb, and shaking with terror.

  “Something has frightened the beast,” said I. “I shall just go and see what it was,” and was about to jump down, when I felt Ralph Thirlston’s great hand on my arm: it was a powerful grip.

  “For the love of God, lad, stay where ye are!” he said, in a frightened whisper. “It’s just here that my brother met his death, for doing what you want to do now.”

  “What! For walking up to that fence and seeing what trifle frightened a skittish horse?” And I looked at the fence intently. There was nothing to be seen but a straggling bough of an elder bush which had forced its way through a chink in the rotten wood and was waving in the wind.

  Finding that the man was really frightened as well as the horse, I humoured him. He still held my arm.

  “There is no need for any one to go closer to see the cause of poor Timothy’s fear,” I said, laughing. “If you will look, Mr. Thirlston, you will see what it was.”

  “Na! lad, na! I’m not going to turn my face towards the deevil and his works. ‘Lord have mercy upon us! Christ have mercy upon us! Our Father which art in heaven—’ ” and he repeated the whole prayer with emphasis, slowness, and with his eyes closed. I sat still, an amazed witness of his state of mind. When he had said “Amen,” he opened his eyes, and looking down at the horse, who seemed to have recovered, as I judged by his putting his head down to graze, he gave a low whistle, and tightening the reins once more, Timothy allowed himself to be driven forward. Thirlston kept his face away from the enclosure on his right hand, and looked steadily at Timothy. I gave another glance towards the innocent elder bough,—but what was my astonishment to see where it had been, or seemed to be, the figure of a man with a drawn sword in his hand.

  “Stop, Thirlston! stop!” I cried. “There is somebody there. I see a man with a sword. Look! Turn back, and I’ll soon see what he is doing there.”

  “Na! na! Never turn back to meet the deevil, when ye have once got past him!” And Thirlston drove on rapidly.

  “But he may overtake you,” I cried, laughing. But as I looked back I saw that a pursuit was not intended, for the figure I had seen was gone. “I’ll pay a visit to that devil to-morrow,” I added. “I shall not harbour such game in my preserves.”

  “Lord’s sake, don’t talk like that, Maister Whinmore!” whispered Thirlston. “We’re just coming to the gaet! May be they may strike Timothy dead!”

  “They?—who? Not the ghosts, surely?” I looked through the great gate as we passed, and saw the whole front of the house. “Why, Mr. Thirlston, you said no one lived in the old Hall! Look! There are lights in the windows.”

  “Ay! ay! I thought you would see them,” he said, in a terrified whisper, without turning his head.

  “Why, look at them yourself,” cried I, pointing to the house.

  “God forbid!” he exclaimed; and he gave Timothy a stroke with the whip, that sent him flying past the rest of the garden of the Hall. Our ground rose again, and in a few minutes a good view of the place was obtained. I looked back at it with vivid interest. No lights were to be seen now; no moving thing; the black windows contrasted with the grey walls, and the grey chimneys with the black clouds, as when the place first appeared to me. The moon now rose above a dark hill on our left. Thirlston allowed Timothy to slacken his speed, and, turning round his head, he also looked back at Whinmore Hall.

  “We are safe enough now,” he said. “The only dangerous time is betwixt sunset and moonrise, when people are passing close to the accursed ould place.”

  About a mile further, the barking of a housedog indicated that we were approaching Mr. Erle’s. The driver stopped at a small wicket-gate leading into a shrubbery, got down, and invited me to do the same. He then fastened Timothy to the gatepost. The garden and the house have nothing to do with my present tale, and are far too dear to me to be flung in as an episodical adornment. They form the scenery of the romantic part of my own life; for Miss Erle became my wife a few years after this first visit to Whinmore. I saw her that
evening, and forgot Ralph Thirlston, the old Hall, its ghosts and mysterious lights. However, the next morning I was forced back to this work-a-day world in her father’s study. There I heard Mr. Erle’s account of my property. All the land was farmed by himself, except the few acres round the Hall, which no one would take because it was not worth tillage, and because of the evil name of the house itself.

  “I suppose you know why no tenant can be found for the Hall, since Ralph Thirlston drove you over?”

  “Yes,” I said, smiling. “But I could get no rational account from him. What is this nonsense about ghosts and lights? Who lives in the Hall?”

  “No one, my good fellow. Why, you would not get the stoutest man in the parish, and that’s Thirlston, to go into the house after sunset, much less live in it.”

  “But I have seen lights in some of the windows myself.”

  “So have I,” he replied.

  “Do you mean to say that no human beings make use of the house, in virtue of the superstition about it? Tricks of this kind are not uncommon.”

  “At the risk of seeming foolish in your eyes, I must reply, that I believe no human beings now living have any hand in the operations which go on in Whinmore Hall.” Mr. Erle looked perfectly grave as he said this.

  “I saw a man with a sword in his hand start from a part of the fence. I think he frightened our horse.”

  “I, too, have seen the figure you speak of. But I do not think it is a living man.”

  “What do you suppose it to be?” I asked, in amazement; for Mr. Erle was no ignorant or weak-minded person. He had already impressed me with real respect for his character and intellect.

  He smiled at my impetuous tone.

  “I live apart from what is called the world,” said he. “Grace and I are not polite enough to think everything which we cannot account for either impossible or ridiculous. Ten years ago, I myself was a new resident in this county, and wishing to improve your property, I determined to occupy the old Hall myself. I had it prepared for my family. No mechanic would work about the place after sunset. However, I brought all my servants from a distance; and took care that they should have no intercourse with any neighbour for the first three days. On the third evening they all came to me and said that they must leave the next morning—all but Grace’s nurse, who had been her mother’s attendant, and was attached to the family. She told me that she did not think it safe for the child to remain another night, and that I must give her permission to take her away.”

  “What did you do?” said I.

  “I asked for some account of the things that had frightened them. Of course, I heard some wild and exaggerated tales; but the main phenomena related were what I myself had seen and heard, and which I was as fully determined as they were not to see and hear again, or to let my child have a chance of encountering. I told them so, candidly; and at the same time declared that it was my belief God’s Providence or punishment was at work in that old house, as everywhere else in creation, and not the devil’s mischievous hand. Once more I made a rigorous search for secret devices and means for producing the sights and sounds which so many had heard and seen; but without any discovery: and before sunset that afternoon the Hall was cleared of all human occupants. And so it has remained until this day.”

  “Will you tell me the things you saw and heard?”

  “Nay, you had better see and hear them for yourself. We have plenty of time before sunset. I can show you over the whole house, and if your courage holds good, I will leave you there to pass an hour or so between sunset and moonrise. You can come back here when you like; and if you are in a condition to hear, and care to hear, the story which peoples your old Hall with horrors, I will tell it you.”

  “Thank you,” said I. “Will you lend me a gun and pistols to assist me in my investigations?”

  “Surely.” And taking down the weapons I had pointed out, he began to examine them.

  “You want them loaded?”

  “Certainly, and with bullets. I am not going to play.”

  Mr. Erle loaded both gun and pistols. I put the latter into my pocket, and we left the room by the window. Grace Erle met us on the moor, riding a shaggy pony.

  “Where are you going, so near dinner time?” she asked.

  “Mr. Whinmore is going to look at the old Hall.”

  “And his gun?” she asked, smiling.

  “I want to shoot vermin there.”

  She looked as if she were about to say something eagerly, but checked herself, and rode slowly away. I looked after her, and wondered what she was going to say. Perhaps she wished to prevent me from going.

  Presently we stood before the great iron gate of Whinmore. Mr. Erle took two keys from his pocket. With one he unlocked the gate, with the other the chief door. There were no other fastenings. These were very rusty, and were moved with difficulty.

  “People don’t get in this way,” said I. “That is clear.”

  The garden was a sad wilderness, and grass grew on the broad steps which led up to the door.

  As soon as we had crossed the threshold, I felt the influence of that desolate dwelling creep over my spirits. There was a cold stagnation in the air—a deathly stillness—a murky light in the old rooms that was indescribably depressing. All the lower windows had their pierced shutters fastened, and cobwebs and dust adorned them plentifully.

  Yet I could have sworn I saw lights in two, at least, of these lower windows. I said so to my companion. He replied—

  “Yes. It was in this very room you saw a light, I dare say. This is one in which I have seen lights myself. But I do not wish to spoil my dinner by seeing anything supernatural now. We will leave it, and I will hasten to the lady’s bed-chamber and dressing-room, where the apparitions and noises are most numerous.”

  I followed him, but cast a glance round the room before I shut the door carefully. It was partly furnished like a library, but on one side was a bed, and beside it an easy-chair. “What 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 I 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.