It was not yet ten o'clock, and I was dismayed at the thought of being left to my own devices in this big country-house, at an hour when the talk at the Hare and Tortoise usually became worth while. I sat down and began to turn over the periodicals on the library table, but I was in no mood for reading.
The butler appeared and offered me drink, but the thought of drinking alone did not appeal to me. I repelled the suggestion coldly; but after I had dropped my eyes to the English review I had taken up, I was conscious that he stood his ground.
"Beg pardon, sir."
"Well?"
"Hit's a bit hod about the chimney, sir."
The professional man in me was at once alert. The chimney's conduct was inexplicable enough, but I was in no humor to brook the theories of a stupid servant. Still, he might know something, so I nodded for him to go on.
He glanced over his shoulder and came a step nearer.
"They say in the village, sir, that the 'ouse is 'aunted."
"What?"
"'Aunted, sir."
"Who say it, James?"
"The liveryman told the coachman, and the 'ousemaid got hit from a seamstress. Hit's werry queer, sir."
"Rubbish, James. I 'm amazed that a person of your station should listen to a liveryman's gossip. There 's the chimney, it's working perfectly. Some shift of air-currents causes it to puff a little smoke into this room occasionally, but those things are not related to the supernatural. We 'll find some way of correcting it in a day or two."
"Werry good, sir. But begging pardon, the chimney hain't hall. Hit walks, if I may so hexpress hit."
"Walks?" I exclaimed, sitting up and throwing down my review. "What walks?"
"You 'ear hit, sir, hin the walls. Hit goes right through the solid brick, most hunaccountable."
"You hear a mouse in the walls and think it's a ghost? But you forget, James, that this is a new house,—only a year or so old,—and spooks don't frequent such places. If it were an old place, it might be possible that the creaking of floors and the settling of walls would cause uneasiness in nervous people. The ghost tradition usually rests on some ugly fact. But here nothing of the kind is present."
"Hit was one of 'is majesty's horfficers, sir," he answered hoarsely.
"Hit was one of 'is majesty's horfficers, sir," he answered hoarsely.
It flashed over me that this big stolid fellow was out of his head; but sane or mad he was clearly greatly disturbed. It was best, I thought, on either hypothesis, to speak to him peremptorily, and I rose, the better to deal with the situation.
"What nonsense is this you have in your head? You 're in the United States, and there are n't any majesty's soldiers to deal with. You forget that you 're not in England now."
"But this 'ere country used to be Henglish, you may recall, sir. The story the coachman got hin the village goes back to the hold times, sir, when the colonies was hin rebellion, if I may so call hit, sir, and 'is majesty's troops was puttin' down the rebellion hin these parts. Some American rebels chased a British soldier from hover near White Plains to these 'ere woods as they was then, and they 'anged 'im, sir, right where this 'ere 'ouse stands, if I may make so free."
"Ah! This is a revolutionary relic, then?"
"You 'ave got hit, sir," he sputtered eagerly. "They 'anged the man right 'ere where the 'ouse stands."
"That's not a bad story, James. And what does your mistress say about it?"
"Well, sir; hit's the talk hin the village that that's why she bought the place, sir. She rather fancies ghosts and the like, as you may know, sir."
"Be careful what you say, James. Miss Hollister is a noble and wise lady, and you do well to give her your best service."
"We're all fond of 'er, sir, though she's a bit troubled hin the 'ead, if I may make so bold. She says a good ghost is a hasset."
I did not at once catch 'asset' with an aspirate, but when he repeated it, I laughed in spite of myself.
"You 'd better go to bed, James. And don't encourage talk among the other servants about this ghost. I know something about the building of houses, and I 'll give these walls a good looking over. Good-night."
It was apparent that my interview had not cheered him greatly. He turned at the door, to ask if I would put out the lights, and fear was so clearly written upon his big red face that I dismissed him sharply.
I made myself comfortable for an hour, smoking a cigar over an article on English politics, and while I read, a big log placidly burned itself to ashes. I found the switch and snapped out the library lights. When I had gained the second floor I turned off the lights in the hall below, and as I looked down the well to make sure I had turned the right key, the third floor lights suddenly died and I was left in darkness. This was the least bit disconcerting. I was quite sure that the upper lights had remained burning brightly after the darkening of the lower hall, so that it was hardly possible that the one switch had cut off both lights.
Standing by the rail that guarded the well, I peered upward, thinking that some one above me was manipulating another switch; but the silence was as complete as the blackness. I was about to turn from the rail to the wall to find the switch, but at this moment, as my face was still lifted in the intentness with which I was listening, something brushed my cheek,—something soft of touch and swift of movement. As I gripped the rail I felt this touch once, twice, thrice. Then my hand sought the wall madly, and with so bad an aim that it was quite a minute before I found the switch-plate and snapped all the keys. The stair, and the halls above and below me sprang into being again, and I stood blinking stupidly upward.
Though I was in a modern house thoroughly lighted by electricity, I cannot deny that this incident, following so quickly upon the butler's story, occasioned a moment's acute horripilation, accompanied by an uncomfortable tremor of the legs. As already hinted, I lay no claim to great valor. As for ghosts, I am half persuaded of their existence, and after witnessing a presentation of Hamlet, always feel that Shakespeare is as safe a guide in such matters as the destructive scientific critics.
There were various plausible explanations of the failure of the lights. Some switch that I did not know of, perhaps in the third-floor hall, might have been turned; or the power house in the village might have been shifting dynamos. Either solution of the riddle was credible. But the ghostly touch on my face could not be accounted for so readily. Leaving the lights on, I continued to the third floor, and examined the switch, and sought in other ways to explain these phenomena. My composure returned more slowly than I care to confess, and I think it was probably in my mind that the ghost of King George's dead soldier might be lying in wait for me; but I saw and heard nothing. The doors of the unused chambers on the third floor were closed, and I did not feel justified in trying them. The servants were housed on this floor, at the rear of the house, and a door that cut off their quarters proved on examination to be tightly locked.
The fourth floor was only a half-story, used for storage purposes. The roof was gained, I recalled, by an iron ladder and a hatchway in a trunk-room. I ran down to my room and found a candle, to be armed against any further fickleness of the lights, and set out for the fourth floor. I had changed my coat, and with a couple of candles and a box of matches started for the roof. My courage had risen now, and I was ready for any further adventure that the night might hold for me. Miss Hollister and Cecilia were both in their rooms, presumably asleep; the servants doubtless had their doors barred against ghostly visitors, and the house was mine to explore as I pleased.
I think I was humming slightly as I mounted the stair, which, in keeping with the general luxuriousness that characterized the furnishing of the house, was thickly carpeted even to the fourth floor. I was slipping my hand along the rail, and mounting, I dare say, a little jauntily as I screwed my courage to an unfamiliar notch, when suddenly, midway of the first half, and just before I reached the turn where the stair broke, the lights failed again, with startling abruptness. This was carrying the joke pretty far, and instantly I clapped my hand to my pocket for the box of safety-matches, dug it out, and then in my haste dropped the lid essential to ignition, and stooped to find it.
The stair had narrowed on this flight, and as I sought with futile eagerness to regain the box-lid, I could have sworn that some one passed me. Still half-stooping, I stretched out my arms and clasped empty air, and so suddenly had I thrown myself forward, that I lost my balance and rolled downward the space of half a dozen treads before I recovered myself. I was badly scared and hardly less angry at having missed through my own clumsiness the joy of grappling with the ghost of one of King George's soldiers; but the matches having been lost in the pitch-darkness of the stair, I could get my bearings again only by clinging to the stair-rail until I found the second-floor switch. I should say that two full minutes had passed between the loss of the matches and my flashing on of the lamps. From top to bottom the lights shone brightly; but no one was visible and I heard no sound in any part of the house.
As I began to analyze my sensations during the temporary eclipse of the lights, I was conscious of two things. The being, human or other, that had passed me had been light of step and fleet of motion. There had been something uncanny in the ease and speed of that passing. I was without conviction as to its direction, whether up or down, though I inclined to the former notion for the reason that the employment of a concealed switch above seemed the more reasonable argument. And a faint, an almost imperceptible scent, as of a flower, had seemed to be a part of the passing. Mine is a sensitive nostril, and I was confident that it did not betray me in this. The sensation stirred by that faintest of odors had been agreeable; there was nothing suggestive of grave-mold or cerecloth about it. There was in fact something rather delightfully human and contemporaneous in this fellow that pleased and reassured me. That scamp of a revolutionary British soldier, resenting as was his right the application of hemp to his precious neck, had still a grace in him, and a ghost who prowls undaunted about an electric-lighted house in this twentieth century, having his whim with the switches, cannot be an utterly bad fellow. My respect for all who are doomed to walk the night rose as, leaving the lights on clear to the lower hall, I gathered up my matches and started again for the roof. The trunk-room door opened readily, as on my morning inspection of the chimney-pots, but as I glanced up, I saw that the hatch was open. Through the aperture shone the heavens, a square of stars, and bright with the moon's radiance. Pocketing my matches, I ran nimbly up the ladder.